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THE    GREAT   WAY 


THE   GREAT  WAY 

A  STORY  OF 

THE   JOYFUL 

THE  SORROWFUL 

THE  GLORIOUS 


NEW  YORK 

MITCHELL  KENNERLEY 
MCMXXI 


COPYRIGHT,     1921,     BY 

MITCHELL    KENNERLEY 


First  Edition,  August  ig2l 

Second  Edition       September  1921 


ALL  RIGHTS,  INCLUDING  DRAMATIC  AND 
MOVING  PICTURE   RIGHTS,   RESERVED 


PRINTED  IN  THE  UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA 


PUBLISHED  IN  ENGLAND  BY  CASSELL  AND  COMPANY,  LTD. 


TO 

HELEN  FREEMAN 
BECAUSE  SHE  REMINDS  PEOPLE  OF  BEAUTY 


2083489 


CONTENTS 


PROLOGO 

BOOK  I 
THE  EPIPHANY  ON  THE  ROAD 

CHAPTER  PAGE 

1.  THE   IUMBLA   OF    THE    FLOWERS  1 

2.  THE    STREET   OF    CARMEN  12 

3.  THE   ROYAL  23 

4.  CABALLERO   OF    THE   MOON  39 

5.  FLOWERS     OF    THE    6UN  46 

6.  TRAFFIC  49 

7.  THE  TIME  GOD  TOOK  64 

8.  "HER  STEPS  TAKE  HOLD  ON  HELL"  69 

9.  INMACULADA  NOCHE  66 

BOOK  II 

THE  VOICE  OUT  OF  THE  WILDERNESS 

10.  THE  DEVOURERS  71 

11.  60METHING  TO  DO  77 

12.  THE  WHEEL  82 

13.  THE  UNTYING  OF  THE  ROPB  89 

14.  MANDRA'GORA  92 

15.  LA  GITANA  98 

16.  PLAZA  DE  TOROS  113 

17.  AN  ENGLISH  WORD  119 

18.  THE  WORLD'S  HEART  126 

19.  THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GREAT  VOICE  138 

20.  "AT  LAST  i  KNOW!"  148 

21.  THE    DISH    OF    SILVER  151 

22.  A    FLOWER    OF    THE   ENGLISH   8UN  169 

23.  SCORES  193 

24.  GRAN  fodTO  202 

25.  MONEY  213 

BOOK  III 
THE  PAINTED  DESERT 

26.  THE  ATTRACTION   OF  OPPO8ITE8  218 

27.  IN   THE  LITTLE  RED   BOOK  228 

28.  PEOPLE  246 

29.  LET   THE  DEAD  PAST  BURY  ITS  DEAD  258 

30.  THE  LITTLE  RED  BOOK  AGAIN  274 

31.  THE  WARM   SHADOW  277 

32.  THE   MIRACLE  OF   ROSES  299 

33.  THE    LITTLE    RED    BOOK   IS   POSTED  316 

34.  THE   GREAT   WAYWARD   ONE  330 

35.  CONTRITION  357 

36.  PASEAR  381 

BOOK  IV 
THROUGH  THE  BAD  VALLEY 

37.  THE    NIGHT    AND    THE    NIGHTINGALE  398 

38.  vissi  D'ARTE  428 

89.       THE    SWING    OF    THE    PENDULUM  434 

40.  LA    GRAN    VIA  451 

41.  THE    WAY  489 

a 


For  the  lips 

Of  a  strange  woman  drop  as  an  honeycomb, 
and  her  palate  is  smoother  than  oil : 

But  her  end  is  bitter  as  wormwood,  sharp 
as  a  twoedged  sword. 

Her  feet  go  down  to  death;  her  steps  take 
hold  on  hell. 

Lest  thou  shouldest  ponder  the  path  of  life, 
her  ways  are  moveable,  that  thou  canst  not  know 
them.  PROVERBS  v.  3-6. 


PROLOGO 

LA  GRAN  VIA  sweeps  on  everywhere. 

It  sweeps  from  God  to  this  earth,  and  from  this  earth 
back  to  God  again. 

Perhaps  it  is  God.  We  do  not  know,  and  while  we  are 
staying  on  this  earth,  we  never  will.  Amen.  It  would  be 
pleasant  to  find  out  later  on,  and  we  may;  meanwhile, 
whether  or  no,  in  some  small  way  or  another  you,  I, 
must  tread  the  Great  Way. 

Vaguely,  some  two  "wheres"  deep  in  our  two  souls,  we 
both  know  the  great  secret  already,  you  and  I. 

But  we  have  no  words  at  hoof  to  put  it  into.  And 
therein  lies  the  yoke  that  hangs  on  our  necks,  yours  and 
mine,  as  we  go  along  together,  up  hill  and  down. 

Suddenly,  in  the  relief  of  going  down  a  steep  hill  or 
the  joy  of  striving  to  struggle  up  a  new  one,  I  turn  to 
you  and  try,  as  I  have  tried  so  many  times  before,  to  say 
to  you  as  you  have  been  trying,  perhaps,  to  say  to  me: 

"//  it  were  not  this  struggle,  it  would  be  some  other. 
The  Great  Way  never  ends.  Oh,  learn  if  you  do  not 
know  it,  having  learned,  remember,  though  for  each  'one' 
of  us  it  begins  in  some  earthly  place,  and  would  seem  to 
end  in  some  earthly  place,  I  beseech  you  learn  and  remem- 
ber, remember:  La  Gran  Via  itself  starts  rolling  at  the 
knees  of  God." 


BOOK  I 

THE  EPIPHANY  ON  THE  ROAD 
CHAPTER  I 

THE  RAMBLA  OF  THE   FLOWERS 

FOR  the  sweetest  girl  in  Spain,  it  began  at  Cadiz,  that 
little  peninsula  of  the  great  peninsula  which  lies  simmer- 
ing in  the  balm  of  the  Atlantic,  as  if  Spain  and  Portugal 
were  a  doubled  up  fist  (and  God  knows  about  that!)  with 
a  diminutive  finger  stretched  out  into  the  sea  for  the 
town  to  stand  on,  white  and  glittering  above  and  against, 
the  blue. 

Here,  in  the  city  which,  since  Carthage  owned  and 
glorified  it  for  its  abnormal  wealth  of  tin  and  silver  has 
till  recent  generations  been  the  old  world's  sea-garden  of 
luxury,  here  was  Dulce  born. 

But  not  in  luxury.  The  town  till  lately  fabulous  in 
riches  was  now  what  it  bids  fair  to  stay:  beautiful  in 
poverty,  lazy  in  misfortune,  rich  only  in  palms  and 
memories  and  in  jewels  set  into  the  walls  of  its  yellow 
cathedral;  and  famous  this  long  while  for  the  delight  of 
its  girls  and  softly  indolent  with  its  sensuous  men  that 
loll  contentedly,  between  watches  of  languorous  work,  at 
their  small,  slow,  continuous  glasses  of  Amontillado,  in 
the  barely  carriage-wide  twisting  streets,  and  under  the 
sun  and  drooping  verdure  of  the  water-front — like  flecks 
in  a  delicate  canvas,  for  anent  her  sensual  beauty  Cadiz 
has  one  virtue,  instinctive  and  incongruous:  it  is  clean, 
clean,  clean. 

Here,  between  the  narrow,  tall  rows  of  pastel-tinted 

1 


2  The  Great  Way 

houses,  twisting-columned  and  balconied  and  grilled, 
white  and  cream-coloured,  green  and  pink,  Dulce  learned 
to  walk.  And  to  talk  even  before  that,  from  the  girls — 
the  sung-of  girls ! — of  Cadiz — very  beautifully,  as  it 
happened,  for  she  took,  like  a  fish  to  running  water,  by 
an  instinct  sheer  as  that  which  makes  Cadiz  clean,  to  the 
castellano,  so  that  she  was  soon  correcting  those  same 
sung-of  girls,  and  was  never,  if  you  will  make  the  favour, 
senorita,  found  biting  off  the  tails  of  her  words  in  the 
surrounding  manner  of  her  comrade  Andalusians. 

Then,  one  night,  from  the  heat  of  poverty  and  press- 
ing custom  and  oppressing  religion,  she  walked  out  of  it 
all,  alone,  in  secret,  along  the  causeway  lapped  by  the  cool 
waves  of  the  ocean,  to  the  mainland,  and  commenced  her 
own  particular  Gran  Via,  which  led  her  deviously,  terribly 
through  Sevilla,  where  she  danced  for  a  while  in  the 
streets,  with  a  small  tambourine  and  smaller  feet — and 
sang  a  little,  too.  The  voice  was  clear,  and  wonderfully 
sweet.  But  it  was  too  unstable  ...  or  too  something, 
anyway,  to  be  much  successful  with  Spanish-folk  in  the 
open  air,  which  seemed  to  play  tricks,  make  impolite 
demands,  upon  it.  ...  And  therefore  casting  aside  all 
thought  of  it  with  a  debonair  gesture  of  the  mind,  very 
much  as  she  would  bodily  have  tossed  by  a  recalcitrant 
rose  or  violet,  without  even  this  frail  armament  of  sound 
she  went  on  ...  to  other  cities,  kind  but  less  kind  .  .  . 
and  through  the  tumbling  country  north  and  north,  as  if 
the  magnetic  pole  were  drawing  her,  and  still  on,  to  the 
east  a  little,  but  forever  north  and  forever  north,  and  into 
the  province  where  Spain  is  old  Spain  no  longer,  but 
bustling  and  active — though  lazier  at  that  than  even 
Italy;  where  churches  and  convents  have  been  burned 
down  in  sudden  blind  rage,  where  socialism  and  anar- 
chism and  a  bullet  are  all  alike,  and  alike  misunderstood 
and  alike  used ;  where  a  big  bright  gay  and  rich  city,  not 
noble  like  Madrid  yet  larger  still,  has  sprung  up  from  a 
village  in  the  plain  to  be  the  port  of  entrance  into  Spain — 
the  sparkling  bangle  of  the  Pyrenees,  the  modern  garden 


The  Rambla  of  the  Flowers  3 

of  the  Mediterranean,  the  Little  Paris  of  the  south  of 
Europe — Barcelona.  To  this  yellow  seething  city,  Dulce's 
feet  were  led  by  La  Gran  Via. 

And  this  day,  as  the  evening  sunlight  slanted  from  the 
blue  and  lavender  and  pearl-white  of  the  foothills  and  the 
sky,  it  was  leading  her  along  the  city's  Gran  Via  Diag- 
onal, through  the  golden  haze  that  shone  on  herds  of 
snow-white  bearded  goats,  into  the  Plaza  Cataluna,  and 
across  its  palm-lined  paths  to  the  Paseo  Gracia,  and 
along,  along,  along  to  the  suburb  at  the  foot  of  the 
pretty  little  mountain  of  the  watch-tower,  Tibidabo,  and 
back,  disheartened  and  glad  both,  and  again  across  the 
brilliant  Plaza  into  the  lovely  Ramblas  of  the  Old  City. 

God !  God !  What  a  life  this,  without  a  voice  harsh 
enough  to  raise,  in  a  town  where  music  comes  only  from 
blind  folk  anyway,  and  dancing  is  paid  for  in  theatres ! 
Dio !  Dio !  Dio !  But  with  a  sigh  she  said  she  did 
not  care,  and  thought  she  meant  it.  Perhaps  she  did, 
for  she  was  beautiful  enough,  and  knew  she  was,  even 
in  a  country  of  very  beautiful  women;  and  she  had  not 
starved  yet,  and  her  one  room  in  the  Calle  del  Carmen, 
a  street  as  full  of  bustle  and  loud  noise  and  food  and 
finery  and  drink  and  good-nature  as  any  other  in  Spain, 
was  comfortable  enough  and,  thanks  to  God,  her  chest 
full  of  clothes  and  tambourine  enough — in  addition,  she 
hoped,  to  voice  enough  after  all,  if  necessary.  It  would 
be  too  bad  to  scream  with  so  nice  a  voice,  but  still  .  .  . 
if  the  worst  came  up  again ! 

So  with  a  heart  at  bottom  light  enough,  she  walked, 
with  and  against  the  tides  of  labourers  and  business- 
men and  gentlemen  strolling  homeward-bound,  into  the 
Rambla  Caneletas,  and  on  under  the  towering  planeta 
trees  to  the  Rambla  of  the  Estudios,  across  which  gazes 
the  fashionable  little  Royal,  with  its  green  and  yellow 
wicker  tables  and  chairs  set  on  the  sidewalk,  and  along 
it  under  the  scream  of  birds  that  has  dubbed  it  Rambla 
of  the  Sparrows,  to  the  next,  Rambla  of  the  Flowers. 
Here,  suddenly,  she  stopped.  Just  beyond  her,  buying  a 


violet  boutonmiere  at  the  stand  of  an  exquisitely  pretty, 
hatless  girl,  stood  a  man's  figure  that  she  recognized, 
although  through  the  shifting  crowd  she  could  but 
glimpse  it.  He  was  tall,  stalwart,  lighter-skinned,  lighter- 
haired  than  the  graceful  limbed  Spanish  men  about  him. 
His  derby  hat  was  worn  American  fashion ;  his  suit  of 
rough  yellow-white  was  more  loosely  worn  than  their 
melting  browns  and  greens.  He  was  smiling  at  the 
swarthy,  pretty  girl  as  she  pulled  and  patted  the  violets 
Into  his  coat.  For  a  second  Dulce  hesitated;  then  she 
walked  straight  up  to  him,  holding  out  her  hand : 

"How  yo  doo  doo?  Fleece  to  say  yo  'gain.  Preety 
efening,  no?" 

In  his  surprise  and  confusion,  he  had  taken  her  hand 
for  a  brief  moment;  now,  with  a  laugh,  he  dropped  it. 

"So  you  speak  English?  You  deserve  some  flowers 
for  that!  Make  me  the  favour  to  choose  them  your- 
self." And  having  dropped  another  coin  into  the  flower- 
girl's  hand,  he  walked  away,  leaving  her  staring  after 
him. 

"Name  of  white  God,  but  you  are  bold,"  said  the 
flower-girl,  gazing  at  her  with  admiration.  "I  would 
not  be  selling  stale  violets  if  I  had  your  pluck.  But 
you  did  not  succeed,  at  that.  Let  me  tell  you  something 
for  nothing.  He  is  a  Mejicano,  and  you  would  have 
done  better  if  you  had  spoken  Spanish." 

"Holy  God,  but  what  a  liar  you  could  be!"  exclaimed 
Dulce.  "He,  a  Methicano!  As  for  Spanish,  you  simple- 
ton, I  never  speak  it.  I  speak  castellano.  If  he  is  a 
Methicano,  do  him  the  favour  to  pronounce  him  right ! 
But  he  never  is — he  spoke  good  English !" 

"You  do  not  know  whether  it  was  good  or  not," 
said  the  flower-girl.  "He  is  just  what  I  say.  As  for 
your  own  tongue,  call  it  madridese,  not  castellano,  if 
you  are  going  to  lisp  like  a  noblewoman.  Your  speech 
is  as  thick  as  two  thieves  full  of  pea-soup.  He  is  from 
Mejico,  I  tell  you,  and  he  stays  right  over  there,  at  the 
Continental  Hotel,  where  he  is  acquainted  with  some 


The  Rambla  of  the  Flowers  5 

Americans.  He  is  as  rich  as  he  looks,  for  he  has  coffee 
in  the  morning  here  at  the  Royal,  and  his  lapel  is  under 
my  finger  for  a  violet  before  he  drinks  it.  Now,  use 
you  this  information  as  you  choose,  but  let  me  tell  you 
to  be  careful,  and  not  to  play  such  a  trick  as  you  did 
too  near  the  hotel,  lest  his  American  lady  acquaintances 
pour  boiling  water  on  you,  or  have  you  arrested,  or  some- 
thing. These  North  Americans  come  here  knowing  noth- 
ing— not  so  much  as  the  meaning  of  the  word  'peseta' — 
and  yet  before  you  know  a  peseta  yourself  they  do  some 
clever  thing  that  puts  you  in  jail.  And  for  my  part,  I 
will  say  that  I  admire  them  for  it,  for  I  am  quite  a 
respectable  young  woman,  and  I  have  no  contempt  at  all 
for  virtue  in  foreigners." 

"Be  careful  of  your  tongue !"  said  Dulce  quickly.  "Ch- 
in the  name  of  the  Virgin  you  will  have  something  from 
me,  you  gutter-hen,  that  will  draw  more  blood  than  boil- 
ing water  does !  Do  you  think  that  I  will  let  you  air 
your  voice  at  me,  unless  with  pretty  manners  and  about 
your  own  cheap  business?  Keep  that  coin  he  gave  you 
for  my  flowers  and  buy  a  gag  with  it,  will  you,  or  do 
you  mean  to  stand  there  like  an  old  she-goat  with  a  beard 
and  tell  me  I  am  not  respectable?" 

"I  would  not  tell  you  that  for  a  million-peseta  lottery 
ticket,"  said  the  flower-girl,  "for  I  would  never  get  it. 
But  I  would  for  two  cents." 

Dulce  looked  at  her,  slowly,  from  head  to  foot  and 
back  again. 

"Well,"  she  said,  thoughtfully,  "I  will  not  kick  you  in 
the  stomach  for  that,  much  as  you  deserve  it,  for  I  am 
such  a  peculiar  girl  that  if  I  love  anything  I  love  the 
truth.  So  he  is  a  Methicano?  How  did  you  find  out 
that?" 

"He  buys  his  flowers  of  me,"  answered  the  girl,  "and 
we  chat.  In  my  trade,  that  is  well  enough.  And  I  only 
spoke  to  you  out  of  kindness,  thinking  you  could  not 
know  Barcelona  very  well.  I  have  seen  you  trudging  it 
often  enough,  God  knows,  and  things  are  seldom  done 


6  The  Great  Way 

that  way  here.  Such  as  are  bad  are  bad  indoors.  If 
I  do  you  a  wrong  I  am  sorry  for  it.  Do  you  know 
Barcelona?" 

"Better  than  you  do,  if  you  are  as  virtuous  as  you 
pretend,"  said  Dulce,  "and  in  the  name  of  God's  white 
mother  I  can  scarcely  believe  it.  I  have  never  seen  you 
before  to  notice  you.  Why  have  you  noticed  me?" 

"There  is  little  else  to  do,"  replied  the  flower-girl, 
"except  to  think  about  those  who  go  by  often.  And  any 
poor  girl  would  envy  you  with  your  face." 

"Now  that  I  notice  it,  you  are  very  pretty,"  said  Dulce. 
"If  you  had  a  dress  like  mine,  you  would  be  as  hand- 
some, or  more  so.  And  let  me  tell  you  that  you  need  not 
envy  me.  There  is  plenty  of  fun  for  everyone  in  the 
world,  I  suppose,  but  I  have  little  that  I  do  not  pay  a  lot 
for.  I  would  like  to  be  a  flower-girl  myself,  if  it  were  not 
too  late.  But  it  is.  If  you  really  are  respectable,  you 
will  not  understand  that ;  but  so  it  is,  so  take  my  word 
for  it." 

"I  really  am,"  said  the  flower-girl,  "but  I  do  envy 
you,  at  that,  with  such  fashionable  clothes  and  manners 
as  you  have.  I  have  often  thought  of  your  way,  but  I 
do  not  know  enough,  and  I  would  be  afraid.  I  am  a  fool, 
I  guess." 

"You  are  no  fool,"  said  Dulce,  "or  you  would  not  have 
spotted  me  the  quick  way  you  did.  And  to  be  as  pretty 
as  you  are  and  respectable  too,  is  not  for  many  a  poor 
girl." 

"It  is  handsome  of  you  to  say  so,"  said  the  girl,  "when 
you  are  so  fashionable  as  well  as  lovely.  And  you  have 
a  beautiful  nature,  too,  for  not  hitting  me  a  punch  on  my 
face  when  I  spoke  to  you  as  I  did.  Would  you  mind 
kissing  me  before  you  go?" 

For  a  moment  Dulce  stared  at  her.  "You  do  not 
mind,  when  we  have  both  told  the  truth?" 

"It  would  make  me  proud,"  said  the  girl,  "when  you  are 
so  distinguished  and  ravishing.  I  have  always  admired 
you,  and  felt  angry  when  you  went  by  looking  so  proud." 


The  Rambla  of  the  Flowers  7 

"Holy  God,  but  I  am  no  one  to  be  proud !"  said  Dulce, 
kissing  her.  "I  should  like  a  respectable  friend,  and  if 
you  will  love  me  as  much  as  I  love  you,  we  will  be  pleasant 
and  affectionate  with  each  other.  I  am  really  not  as  bad 
as  you  think,  for  I  am  as  poor  as  you  are,  I  am  sure, 
and  only  do  it  for  my  living.  And  I  have  no  one  to 
confide  in,  for  I  have  a  lover  and  he  knows  nothing  of 
it." 

"I  know  you  have  a  lover,"  said  the  flower-girl,  "for  he 
has  bragged  about  you." 

"What?"  cried  Dulce,  with  wide  eyes. 

"I  know  no  more  of  him,"  said  the  girl,  "than  I  do  of 
the  Mejicano,  nor  in  any  other  way.  He  was  here  ten 
minutes  ago,  and  bought  two  reales'  worth  of  roses  for 
you.  Knowing  how  fashionable  you  are,  I  put  in  a 
jacinta,  in  the  middle,  for  nothing,  to  sweeten  it.  Will 
you  wear  these  home  to  him,  too?"  And  she  pinned  to 
her  a  large  handful  of  heavy  violets. 

"Well,  well,  but  you  are  a  keen  one !"  marvelled  Dulce. 
"What  do  you  not  know?  We  will  be  great  friends,  I 
can  see.  What  time  do  you  go  home  for  your  own 
supper?" 

"I  go  home  in  an  hour,"  said  the  girl,  "but  not  for 
supper.  I  had  lunch  to-day,  so  for  to-night's  supper  it 
is  my  sister's  turn.  She  has  lunch  to-morrow." 

"Are  you  as  poor  as  that?"  cried  Dulce.  "If  you  get 
off,  though,  you  can  have  supper  with  me." 

The  girl's  pretty  eyes  widened  vastly.  "You  will  let 
me?" 

"But  I  will  let  nothing  else !"  exclaimed  Dulce.  "What 
is  your  attractive  name?" 

"Lola." 

"And  mine  is  Dulce.  Mind  you  pronounce  it  as  I  do, 
'Dool-thay,'  or  I  will  not  like  it.  You  Catalans  claw  up 
the  Spanish  tongue!  I  will  teach  you  to  pronounce  cas- 
tellano.  Do  you  know  the  hosier's  shop,  in  the  Calle 
Carmen?  I  live  over  that.  I  chose  it  for  location,  you 
see,  not  for  fashion.  Four  flights.  Come  at  seven.  Keep 


8  The  Great  Way 

the  money  that  the  Methicano  gave  you  for  me,  and 
bring  something  to  eat  that  you  especially  like  yourself. 
Jaime  works  in  the  coal-yards  at  Mont  Juich,  and  this 
is  pay  day.  So  he  is  sure  to  bring  in  a  bottle  of  wine 
with  him — if  those  flowers  were  for  me !  If  they  were  not, 
you  will  help  me  beat  him  up,  will  you  not,  darling?" 

"In  the  name  of  God  I  will !"  cried  her  friend. 

"And  after  supper,"  continued  Dulce,  "we  will  go  for  a 
drink  to  the  Royal." 

"The  Royal !"  Lola's  eyes  stretched  far  in  their  excite- 
ment, and  then  fell  by  instinct  down  along  her  dull  red 
dress. 

"I  have  one  very  beautiful  costume,"  said  Dulce,  "that 
I  will  wear,  and  another  that  is  quite  lovely  too,  though 
a  little  old-fashioned,  that  I  can  pound  you  into.  Puff 
you  rather,  for  it  will  be  too  big.  Mine  is  blue  silk,  very 
light  in  colour,  and  in  making  it  I  copied  a  Paris  picture. 
Delicate  blue  silk,  just  the  right  amount  too  low,  yet  with 
long  hanging  sleeves.  And  a  short,  tight  skirt.  I  wear  a 
large  pale  yellow  drooping  hat  with  it.  The  other  one 
is  white  lace — far  too  big  for  either  of  us,  as  I  say,  but 
we  can  tighten  it  around  you  somehow,  with  pink  rib- 
bons." 

"Mi  Dios !"  gasped  Lola.     "The  Royal !" 

"Good-bye,  darling,"  said  Dulce ;  and  they  kissed  again. 
"Come  at  sharp  seven,  with  whatever  you  like." 

"Adios !"  cried  Lola.  "You  are  an  elegant  friend  for 
me,  instead  of  kicking  me  as  I  know  you  ought." 

"And  you  are  very  handsome,  and  were  gracious  about 
the  violets,"  added  Dulce. 

"They  are  a  little  stale,  so  I  could  not  sell  them  any- 
way," deprecated  Lola. 

"They  will  last  to-night,"  said  Dulce,  "and  with  the 
roses  and  jacinta,  and  some  French  scent  that  I  have,  we 
will  smell  very  lovely.  Adios !" 

"Adios,  my  beloved!"  And  Dulce  went  on  down  the 
Rambla  to  the  Street  of  Carmen. 


CHAPTER  H 

THE    STREET    OF    CARMEN 

HAVING  climbed  the  dark  stairs  and  sharply  closed  her 
door,  she  slung  down  her  hat  on  to  the  bed,  pulled  her 
table  into  the  centre  of  the  room,  examined  the  contents 
of  her  cupboard,  walked  loudly  across  her  creaking  floor 
to  the  window-sill  and  with  her  elbow  swept  aside  its  pots 
of  mignonette,  gazed  down  into  the  street  and  as  far  as 
she  could  into  the  adjoining  square,  drew  in  her  head, 
and  having  dragged  from  under  the  bed  a  wooden  box 
that  held  her  finery,  knelt  beside  it  for  a  long  while, 
hurling  one  thing  after  another  across  to  the  snowy 
counterpane  until  it  was  covered,  from  rail  to  pillow, 
ivith  a  mad  succession  of  promiscuous  colours — from  per- 
fect lace  to  rotten  velvet,  from  lovely  personal  linen  to 
men's  red  handkerchiefs  for  the  bull-fight. 

Before  she  could  be  satisfied  that  the  best  was  tossed 
forth,  a  knock,  unaccustomed  sound,  came  at  the  door 
and  she  sprang  up. 

Lola  stood  eagerly  trembling  on  the  threshold,  her 
brown  hair  re-combed,  a  white  rose  to  the  rear  of  it,  and 
a  package  hugged  firmly  in  the  crook  of  her  arm. 

"Come  in,  darling!"  cried  Dulce,  hauling  her  forward. 
"Jaime  is  not  home  yet — what  do  you  think  of  that? 
I  begin  to  distrust  those  flowers !  But  we  will  never 
mind,  my  dearest,  if  he  has  had  the  bravery  to  deceive 
me.  We  will  have  a  grand  supper  in  any  case,  and  go 
to  the  Royal  alone  if  necessary.  Look  at  the  bed  there, 
and  the  colours  on  it !  It  is  gay,  what  ?  It  looks  better 
than  with  him  in  it,  I  assure  you." 

She  pushed  Lola  on  to  it,  crumpling  the  bright  fabrics 

9 


10  The  Great  Way 

to  the  pretty  girl's  anguished  discomfiture,  and  took  away 
her  package. 

"Poor  Jaime!  He  is  so  stupid,  I  sometimes  grow 
impatient.  There  he  works  in  the  coalyards  day  by  day, 
and  never  thinks  of  anything  more  clever !  I  often  say  to 
him,  'You  make  it  a  virtue  to  yourself,  that  you  work 
for  both,  never  thinking  I  am  worth  something  better.'  " 

"I  am  sure,  darling,  you  are  worth  something  more 
clever,"  said  Lola,  sitting  stiff  with  awe  among  the  finery. 
"But  how  he  must  respect  you !  And  surely,  he  washes 
off  the  coal,  does  he  not?" 

"When — when  I  insist,"  said  Dulce.  "But  what  I  say 
is,  why  get  it  on?  He  could  be  a  scene-shifter  just  as 
well,  and  he  is,  sometimes,  but  it  is  only  when  they  need 
extras  at  the  Opera.  I  say  often:  'If  you  were  not 
stupid,  you  would  shift  scenes  through  the  season — at 
the  Opera,  too,  which  is  fashionable ! — and  trust  God  to 
care  for  you  in  the  summer.'  Well,  it  hurts  his  feel- 
ings, and  then  I  cry,  like  a  fool.  But  he  is  stupid,  or  he 
would  know  I  could  never  make  a  week's  wages  run  a 
month." 

"Still,  how  you  must  love  him !"  sighed  Lola. 

"Oh,  yes,  yes,"  said  Dulce.  "I  would  never  stop  with 
him,  if  I  did  not  love  him  madly." 

"It  must  be  wonderful  to  love  someone,"  said  Lola.  "I 
— I  have  thought  him  handsome;  and  with  the  smudges 
off- 

"Oh,  yes,  yes,"  said  Dulce  again.  "You  must  know, 
that  I  would  never  be  a  sponge  to  him,  if  I  did  not  love 
him  passionately.  But  he  is  dull,  Lola,  as  vou  shall  see. 
Holy  God,  but  you  have  brought  mussels !  Are  you  fond 
of  them?  Cooked,  too,  and  that  was  sensible,  for  we 
could  never  cook  them  here.  Jaime  will  have  rice  with 
him — if  he  comes  with  those  flowers !  Mi  Dio,  but  we 
will  fix  him  if  he  has  deceived  me !  Set  the  table,  dear." 

This  was  a  natural  thought,  for  Lola  was  busy  setting  it. 

"How  clever  you  are  at  that!"  Dulce  paused  as  she 
sprinkled  her  violets  with  water,  and  as  she  did  so,  some- 


The  Street  of  Carmen  11 

thing  as  bright  as  the  scattering  drops  caught  her  notice, 
and  her  lips  parted  in  her  astonishment. 

"Lola,  what  are  you  crying  for?" 

Lola  gulped  pathetically. 

"I  am  envious,  beloved.  You  have  such  a  happy  and 
fashionable  life,  with  a  devoted  lover,  and  so  much  to 
eat !  I  would  never  be  intelligent  enough !" 

"You  are  not  intelligent  when  you  say  as  much," 
answered  Dulce.  "To  be  sure,  I  am  clever,  and  I  know 
it.  But  so  are  you,  at  selling  flowers,  and  smiling  so 
gaily  at  dull  strangers  who  never  think  of  you  again.  I 
never  could  do  that.  As  for  my  lover  and  enough  to  eat, 
both  are  poor  food  considering  what  I  ought  to  have,  but 
I  am  cheerful  nevertheless.  Besides,  I  have  parted  with 
what  I  can  never  have  back,  and  that  is  no  fun  when  one 
thinks  of  it.  I  would  never  admit  so  much  to  anyone  but 
you,  which  shows  my  devotion  to  you;  but  it  is  true,  let 
me  tell  you." 

"That  is  just  what  I  would  be  afraid  of,"  said  Lola. 
"I  think  I  am  a  coward  by  nature.  I  cry  sometimes 
when  I  get  so  hungry.  But  I  always  get  frightened  from 
your  way,  by  what  an  old  woman  in  our  house  said  to  me 
one  night  when  she  caught  me  thinking  about  it." 

"What  right  has  an  old  hag  to  frighten  you?"  said 
Dulce.  "What  did  she  say?" 

"She  said  a  fearful  thing.  She  said,  'Look  here,  girl. 
Do  you  know  what  it  is  to  be  a  bad  woman  ?  There  is  an 
old  saying:  She  Mils  herself.  But  first  she  kills  her 
parents,  friend,  and  lover.  That  is  what  it  is,  girl/ 
Then  do  you  wonder  I  am  frightened,  Dulce?" 

Dulce  was  silent  for  a  moment. 

"Yes,  yes.  Mi  Dio,  that  is  dreadful!"  she  said  with 
a  little  shudder.  "But,  Lola,  why  do  you  not,'  then,  fear 
to  be  my  friend?" 

Lola  jumped  to  her  and  threw  her  arms  about  her. 

"Darling,  I  am  not  that  much  a  coward !" 

Dulce  kissed  her.  "Dearest,"  she  said,  "old  women 
are  the  same  as  priests.  They  frighten  one  at  nothing. 


12  The  Great  Way 

God  forbid  I  should  tell  anyone  to  be  bad,  Lola.  But  I 
am  no  coward,  and  let  me  tell  you  something:  if  you 
must  be  good,  be  it  for  its  own  sake,  and  not  out  of 
fright.  What  I  have  to  say  to  myself  is,  I  did  not  put 
myself  in  this  world,  and  I  will  not  be  unhappy  in  it 
because  I  saved  my  neck  the  only  way  I  could.  Spilt 
wine  is  bad  for  a  white  cloth,  I  admit,  but  I  shall  never 
try  to  clean  it  with  tears  till  I  am  dull  enough  to  take 
myself  to  the  next  world.  Which  I  would,  rather  than 
sniffle  in  this  one.  What  good  is  it?  Besides,  I  must  eat 
occasionally,  and  Jaime,  devoted  or  not,  being  a  coal- 
heaver,  you  see,  must  eat  three  times  a  day.  What  made 
you  say  the  Methicano  was  so  rich?" 

"His  clothes  and  his  air  and  his  doing  nothing.  Are 
you  still  thinking  of  him,  Dulce?" 

Dulce  laughed.     "Of  course  I  am.     Who  would  not?" 

Lola  gazed  wonderingly  at  her.  "But — but  why,  since 
you  know  his  station?" 

"You  are  a  baby,  Lola !" 

"But  why?" 

"Because,  if  you  must  have  the  truth,  because  I  think 
I  could  really  love  a  man  like  that — station  or  not,  poor 
or  not." 

"When  you  love  Jaime?" 

"Oh,  yes,  yes,  I  love  Jaime  passionately,"  said  Dulce 
quickly.  "But  he  is  stupid,  dearest." 

"And  you  are  so  clever,  my  darling!"  Lola  gazed 
lingeringly  at  the  riot  of  colour  on  the  bed. 

"Well,  here  is  someone  who  is  not !"  cried  Dulce,  spring- 
ing up  and  stepping  to  the  door. 

She  threw  it  open,  and  Jaime,  strangely  clean  and 
odorous  of  barber  and  bouquet,  stood  blinking  at  the 
extravagance  of  candle-light  and  colours. 

"We  have  company,  my  pet !"  cried  Dulce,  kissing 
him  fondly.  "And  I  see  she  is  no  liar,  nor  you  either, 
for  you  have  brought  the  flowers  according  to  your  story 
to  her.  And  the  wine!  But  how  you  must  love  me — 
Lola  darling,  it  is  Amontillado!  Stop  staring,  Jaime! 


The  Street  of  Carmen  13 

I  too  know  your  flower-girl,  and  she  is  here  for  supper! 
We  have  been  acquainted  for  an  hour,  and  are  very 
intimate." 

Lola  was  blushing,  with  bright  averted  eyes,  and 
Jaime  stood  with  open  mouth,  staring  blankly  at  Dulce, 
his  dark  serious  face  struck  dully  into  surprised  lines, 
his  dog's  eyes  fastened  on  his  comrade  with  wondering 
dog's  love. 

"Quick !"  whispered  Dulce,  impatiently  plucking  at 
his  fingers.  "Act  the  gentleman,  will  you?  Put  on  some 
caballero  manners  and  greet  her  in  style!  This  is  an 
occasion  !  Go  do  it !" 

With  abrupt  effort  of  stumbling,  willing  obedience, 
Jaime  walked  forward  and  bowed  over  Lola's  nervous 
outstretched  hand. 

"You  are  charming!"  said  Jaime  with  agonized  polish 
and  miraculous  success.  "You  are  very  charming.  I 
should  like  to  pass  the  night  with  you !" 

"Thank  you  very  much,"  said  Lola,  blushing  modestly 
and  curtsying,  "but  make  me  the  favour  to  wait  until  I 
am  married." 

"And  you  say  you  are  not  clever,  dear!"  cried  Dulce, 
delighted.  "I  could  not  have  done  more  prettily  myself, 
Lola.  It  was  a  lady's  answer!  Come  here,  Jaime,  and 
kiss  me — I  am  proud  of  you!  Now,  Lola  darling,  sit 
down.  You  are  the  guest.  Jaime  will  wait  on  us.  We 
will  both  tell  him  how  we  met.  It  started  in  a  quarrel, 
Jaime,  because  we  disagreed  about  a  passer-by  as  I  was 
stopping  at  Lola's  stand  for  some  violets.  She  said 
he  was  a  Methicano  when  I  would  have  had  him  from 
Nueva  York.  And  she  was  right,  the  clever  thing!  Pull 
that  cork,  dearest,  and  sit  down  with  us." 

And  presently  they  were  eating  noisily  and  talking 
as  much  so,  to  the  clink  of  forks  and  glasses  and  the  loud 
music  of  laughing  .  .  .  like  castanets  against  a  happy 
tune.  .  .  . 

"Holy  God,  but  it  is  eight  o'clock !"  cried  Dulce.  "We 
are  going  to  the  Royal,  Jaime,  and  Lola  will  be  no  easy 


14  The  Great  Way 

girl  to  dress.  She  is  too  pretty  to  be  anything  but 
fashionable." 

"The — Royal?"  stammered  Jaime. 

"Why  not?  It  is  your  pay  day — and  you  know  I 
found  twenty-five  pesetas  this  week.  Had  you  forgotten 
that?" 

"I  have  never  known  such  luck!"  said  Jaime  to  Lola. 
"She  has  found  paper  money  three  weeks  running,  and 
moreover  she  finds  silver  more  than  seldom  in  the  street! 
She  is  so  modest,  she  looks  forever  at  the  ground.  Even 
without  the  money  it  brings  her,  I  like  her  modesty !" 

"She  is  in  every  way  clever,"  said  Lola,  softly. 

"Look,"  cried  Dulce.  "Here  is  your  gown,  Lola. 
What  do  you  say  to  it?" 

Lola  gasped  as  her  hostess  pulled  up  the  mound  of 
lace. 

"Madre  de  Dios,  but  I  could  never  wear  it!  I  would 
blush  every  minute,  trying  to  be  a  lady !" 

"Nonsense,"  said  Dulce.  "Jaime,  smoke  faster.  You 
would  grumble  if  I  put  you  in  the  hall  while  we  dress,  so 
make  a  thick  smoke.  Have  you  a  brother,  Lola?" 

"Two,"  said  Lola.     "Why?" 

"That  is  all  right,  then,"  said  Dulce.  "Smoke  as  you 
like,  Jaime.  But,  then,  as  we  are  gentlefolk  to-night, 
for  manners'  sake  put  on  airs  and  make  the  smoke  thick. 
— Come,  my  dear!" 

Summoning  Lola  to  the  side  of  the  bed,  she  sat  on 
the  edge  of  it  and  unpinned  her  frock.  "Dios,  but  I  see 
you  have  nice  habits  about  you,  dearest !  There — you 
are  now  just  a  few  respectable  linens  and  a  woman.  But 
in  two  minutes  you  will  be  a  lady." 

Whatever  she  was,  it  she  was  in  that  time — lost  to 
view  utterly  below  her  throat  in  a  drooping  cone  of  tar- 
nished lace  that  streamed  about  her  figure  like  a  cloud 
that  upheld  her  pretty  head,  while  it  solidified  in  folds 
upon  the  floor. 

"Dio,  Dio,  will  you  look  at  her?"  laughed  Dulce.  "She 
is  like  a  Murillo  saint,  is  she  not?  But  you  will  look  no 


The  Street  of  Carmen  15 

saint  when  I  get  the  ribbons  on  you !"  And  she  began  to 
loop  up  the  skirt,  tying  it  in  layers  against  itself  with 
deft  pink  knots  and  bows,  and  baring  the  pretty  arms  to 
the  elbows  by  similar  works  of  art  upon  the  shoulders. 
"Well,  well,  you  are  a  work  of  art,  at  that,  though  no 
Murillo  !  You  look  funny,  but  stylish  at  the  same  moment. 
Have  you  seen  the  pictures  of  the  new  Paris  fashions? 
There  are  stranger  ones  than  this,  let  me  tell  you.  That 
loop — the  one  down  there  below  your  knees — is  exact, 
only  the  waist  was  tight.  That  we  cannot  do,  for  it  would 
never  look  as  if  it  were  on  purpose.  As  you  are,  no  one 
will  think  you  a  mistake,  anyway.  Turn  around,  darling. 
I  have  a  buckle  of  brilliants  for  that  same  loop,  right 
between  your  knees.  But  we  need  a  sash  first.  Here, 
catch  this !"  And  she  drew  a  lengthy  ribbon  from  the 
confusion  of  stuffs  on  the  bed.  Its  satin  scraped  swiftly 
between  Lola's  fingers  and  the  great  wealth  of  lace 
bunched  in  above  her  waist  and  stayed  there,  pressed  by 
the  broad  pink  band  knotted  and  drooping  through  a 
quick,  crisp  bow  with  long  trailing  ends.  "Now,  the 
buckle!" 

"Dio !"  gasped  Lola,  gazing  almost  in  terror  down  at 
herself,  and  Jaime's  eyes  grew  large  with  admiration. 

"Now,"  said  Dulce,  "help  me,"  and  together  they 
disarrayed  her  and  spread  forth  the  soft  blue  silk. 

"Do  you  see  that,  my  dear?"  inquired  Dulce,  stretch- 
ing forth  her  arm.  "That  is  a  lesson  for  you,  when  one 
is  as  poor  as  I  am !  Let  me  tell  you,  though  I  may  go 
without  my  dinner  I  do  not  go  without  my  lotion-pot. 
It  is  half  the  battle  to  keep  cheerful.  You  will  learn 
much  from  me,  Lola." 

The  blue  silk  glided  down  from  over  her  head  and  clung 
sheening  about  her. 

"Dio  mio !"  exclaimed  Lola.  "If  I  thought  you  beau- 
tiful before "  and  her  voice  stopped  in  token  of  her 

delight. 

"It  is  simple,"  said  Dulce.  "But  that  is  more  than 
half  the  battle — to  have  a  thing  fit  you.  There,  we  are 


16  The  Great  Way 

done,  my  dear,  except  for  hats.  Now,  Lola,  hats  are  the 
very  last  point  in  fashion.  My  yellow  kind  was  done  for 
years  ago,  but  that  helps  it,  in  my  case,  for  I  know  how 
to  tip  it,  and  if  you  wear  an  wnus'wal  thing  well,  then  the 
battle  is  done,  and  nothing  to  say.  What  do  you  think 
of  it?" 

Having  pinned  it  with  one  hand,  she  slapped  it  with 
the  other  as  she  questioned. 

Lola  gasped  again,  and  the  slow  voice  of  Jaime  said: 
"You  are  beautiful,  Dulce  mia !" 

"Mind  I  stay  your  'mia' !"  cried  Dulce.  "When  I  am 
dressed  like  this,  I  tremble  for  you,  Jaime !" 

Jaime  trembled  for  himself  as  she  said  it. 

"Now  for  your  hat,  Lola.  With  all  that  white,  you 
need  a  black  one.  White  hats  are  fatal.  They  are  dis- 
gusting. Never  buy  one,  Lola,  whether  you  marry  or 
whatever  you  do.  No  matter  what  a  shopman  says  to 
you  about  them,  he  lies.  They  decorate  a  window,  but 
never  a  woman.  Black  is  the  secret,  especially  for  dark 
women,  and  that  is  why  we  Spaniards  are  forever  in 
mourning.  I  wear  the  yellow  for  two  reasons — contrast, 
and  because  I  can.  Well,  I  have  only  one  black  one. 
Here.  Holy  Mother,  but  you  look  a  dream  in  it.  How 
lucky !  Jaime,  we  will  finish  the  wine  now,  to  put  even 
more  sparkle  into  Lola,  and  it  will  make  us  just  in  time, 
in  the  fashionable  crowd  before  the  theatre.  Come,  draw 
up!" 

Again  the  voices  babbled  over  the  tinkle  of  glasses. 
But  suddenly  Dulce  forgot  to  drink,  and  the  polite  small- 
talk  of  her  charms  ran  between  Jaime  and  Lola  while 
she  gazed  at  the  wall,  her  thoughts  far  off  somewhere 
beyond  it  and  her  eyes  grave  and  fixed. 

"What  ails  you,  Dulce?"  asked  Jaime. 

"Yes,  darling!"  cried  Lola.  "Have  you  heard  what 
Jaime  and  I  have  said  about  you?" 

"No,  I  am  sad,"  said  Dulce. 

"Sad?"  cried  Lola. 

"Sad?"  cried  Jaime. 


The  Street  of  Carmen  17 

"Well,  well,  I  have  excuse  enough!"  said  Dulce.  "I 
was  thinking  it  is  the  thirteenth  of  the  month." 

"And  are  you  superstitious,  dear,  very?"  asked  Lola. 

"Not  very,"  answered  Dulce.  "But  what  month  is  it? 
October,  no  ?  Well,  this  is  an  unlucky  day  for  the  Span- 
ish poor.  On  October  the  thirteenth,  Ferrer  was  shot." 

"But  Dulce  mia,"  said  Jaime,  staring,  "what  business 
is  that  of  yours?" 

"Yes,  darling,"  cried  Lola,  "why  should  that  sadden 
you?" 

"Are  you  Spaniards?"  demanded  Dulce,  her  voice  re- 
proachful. "And  are  you  poor?  Must  not  every 
Spaniard,  except  the  Government  and  the  priests,  think 
of  him  every  little  while  ?  Well,  never  mind.  They  will  be 
putting  a  statue  to  him  sometime,  having  murdered  him — 
as  they  have  done  to  Colon,  who  discovered  everything  on 
earth  for  us  except  the  North  Pole.  Let  me  tell  you  that 
Ferrer  loved  the  people.  The  people,  I  tell  you !  Mi  Dio, 
there  is  excuse  for  Lola,  who  is  a  baby;  but  you  are  a 
man,  Jaime,  or  ought  to  be.  Dio  mio,  but  I  could  weep 
whenever  I  think  of  it !  And  as  one  of  the  people  I  have 
more  reason  to  weep  than  you  know,  Jaime !  Lola  knows 
more  there  than  you  do !  A  girl  can  tell  things  to  a  girl ! 
But  I  must  not  sadden  you.  Only,  it  is  so  new  to  see  you 
two  sitting  there  together,  and  to  have  some  family  life! 
It  made  me  think  of  the  future,  and  your  asking  me  to 
marry  you,  Jaime !  How  stupid  it  was  of  you !" 

"But  I  never  meant  it  for  an  insult,  Dulce !"  cried 
Jaime.  "I  thought  you  had  forgiven  it  long  ago !" 

"Well,  never  mind,"  said  Dulce.  "I  was  thinking  also 
of  Ferrer,  who  loved  poor  people.  And  got  shot  for  it. 
And  I  was  thinking,  too,  that  when  people  try  to  kill 
the  dear  sweet  good-looking  king  for  the  matter  I  could 
claw  them,  whether  they  are  poor  or  not !  The  stupid 
fools,  they  never  stop  to  think  it  was  not  the  king  did  it ! 
As  you  both  can  see,  I  am  a  peculiar  girl,  and  I  give  more 
thought  to  public  matters  than  the  next  man  does.  Let 
me  tell  you  what  I  have  been  told :  it  was  the  priesthood 


18  The  Great  Way 

killed  Ferrer,  for  it  would  never  do  for  poor  people,  as  I 
am,  to  read  and  write,  as  I  can.  Well,  when  the  king 
understood  he  would  have  pardoned  him.  No  one  need 
talk  to  me  against  the  king.  But  the  priesthood — and 
mind,  now,  that  I  choose  my  word  and  do  not  say  religion, 
or  the  Church — the  priesthood  won.  Such  is  our  country 
for  poor  folks !" 

"Dulce,  Dulce!"  stammered  Jaime,  as  Lola's  eyes 
stared  widely.  "Be  careful  what  you  say!  You  do  no£ 
know  any  such  thing!" 

"I  believe  it,"  answered  Dulce,  "and  indoors  I  will 
say  what  I  like.  I  have  heard  it  said  openly  in  the  street, 
and  not  only  that,  but  in  the  Royal,  by  aristocrats.  And 
it  makes  me  sad!" 

"Do  not  be  sad,  darling!"  pleaded  Lola.  "See — you 
have  made  me  cry  already !" 

"Holy  God!"  exclaimed  Dulce,  breaking  into  tears. 
"Life  is  a  very  sad  thing !  Sometimes  I  think  what  might 
happen  to  Jaime  any  minute.  Or  to  me,  which  is  much 
worse — for  I  am  clever  enough  to  take  care  of  both  of  us, 
while  he  is  not,  poor  stupid  darling!  Lola,  my  own, 
promise  me  that  if  I  should  be  terribly  injured,  or  die,  or 
be  shot,  or  disappear,  you  will  marry  him  and  take  care 
of  him,  will  you,  Lola  ?  Perhaps  you  could  make  a  scene- 
shifter  of  him !  If  I  die,  or  anything  awful  happens,  will 
you  marry  Lola  for  my  sake,  Jaime?" 

And  she  sobbed  aloud. 

"Yes,  Dulce  mia,  yes!"  wept  Jaime.  "I  will  do  any- 
thing you  ask  me  to '" 

"And  you  do  not  answer  me,  Lola!"  sobbed  Dulce 
loudly. 

"Yes,  beloved,  yes,  if  he  will  have  me!"  sobbed  Lola. 
"I  can  never  be  so  clever  for  him  as  you  are,  but  I  will 
do  my  best  to  save,  and  we  will  buy  a  big  monument  for 
you!" 

"Holy  God !"  wept  Dulce.  "We  must  be  going  to  the 
Royal.  Think  how  I  will  weep  over  you  in  heaven, 


The  Street  of  Carmen  19 

watching  you  together!  Come,  set  your  hat  right, 
darling!  How  sad  life  is,  when  we  think  of  death!" 

"Oh!    Oh!    Oh!    Yes!    Oh!"  sobbed  Lola. 

"Oh!     Dulce!     Oh!     Oh!"  sobbed  Jaime. 

"Oh!  Oh!  Oh!"  sobbed  Dulce;  and  together  they 
proceeded  downstairs  and  through  the  narrow  calle  into 
the  Ramblas,  to  the  Royal. 


CHAPTER  IH 

THE   ROYAL 

THE  pretty  place  was  crowded,  and  Lola,  hanging  to 
both  of  them  tight  and  close,  burned  deep  red  with  self- 
consciousness  as  they  pushed  their  way  through  the  nar- 
row aisles  of  tables  under  the  yellow  and  green  awning 
into  the  restaurant. 

"We  must  sit  here,"  said  Dulce,  as  chairs  were  set 
back  for  them  from  a  small  glass-topped  table,  "till 
theatre  time.  Then  we  can  have  places  outside.  Which 
chair  will  you  have,  Lola?  Here,  where  you  can  look 
out,  or  here,  where  you  can  see  the  special  dining-room 
back  there?" 

"Here,"  whispered  Lola,  sinking  into  the  chair  with 
its  back  toward  the  door,  and  feasting  her  eyes  on  the 
exquisite  blue  and  silver  little  room  beyond,  which  filled 
up  a  vista  of  preserved  fruits  and  rainbow-tinted  con- 
fections in  files  of  glass  cases  for  one  side,  and  white- 
napkined  tables  and  pretty  women  and  dark  handsome 
men  for  the  other. 

"Cervesa — tres,"  said  Dulce  to  the  uniformed  waiter 
who  stood  bowing  while  Jaime  sat  hesitating.  "Stop 
fidgeting,  Jaime."  And  as  Lola  still  gazed  about,  and 
Dulce  hummed,  "Do  Not  Cry,  Bebete,"  to  the  tinkle  and 
thrum  of  a  band  of  street  musicians,  three  beers  were  set 
upon  their  table,  and  once  more  they  drank,  once  more 
their  voices  resounded  against  each  other. 

"We  get  as  many  eyes  as  matadors  would,"  whispered 
Dulce.  "We  are  certainly  handsome,  Lola,  and  these 
clothes  are  very  lovely.  Jaime,  if  you  would  sit  straight 
and  speak  more  carelessly  to  the  waiter  you  would  be 
more  worthy  of  us.  Holy  God,  but  I  am  happy !" 

20 


The  Royal  21 

"So  am  I!"  whispered  Lola. 

"That  is  right,  darling!    And  you,  Jaime?" 

"I  would  be  a  little  happier,"  said  Jaime,  "in  that  nice 
cafe  down  by  the  dock,  where  the  noise  is  so  comfortable. 
Still,  I  am  very  happy,  Dulce !" 

Again  Dulce  hummed,  now  a  little  more  loudly,  as 
another  trio  of  fiddle,  guitar  and  mandoline  halted  outside 
in  its  stroll. 

"Lola,  did  you  see  that  lady  nod  and  smile  at  me?  I 
swear  to  you  that  is  simply  because  she  has  seen  me  before 
somewhere,  or  else  purely  on  account  of  our  attractive 
appearance.  We  are  friendly,  we  Spaniards,  are  we  not? 
We  are  a  queer  people,  Lola — if  you  have  never  noticed 
it — more  democratic  than  the  whole  rest  of  the  world, 
for  all  our  caste  and  our  fine  young  king.  And  he  is  more 
so  than  the  rest  of  us.  I  happen  to  know  it  from  a  friend 
at  Madrid.  No  wonder  holy  God  saves  his  life  every  five 
minutes !" 

"Dulce,  Dulce  mio,"  pleaded  Jaime,  "make  me  the 
favour  not  to  talk  so  here  so  loud !" 

"Why  not?"  demanded  Dulce.  "I  am  happy,  and  I 
am  saying  only  good  things  of  both  king  and  people!" 
She  beckoned  the  waiter.  "Hombre !  Aqui !  Is  there 
room  outside  now?" 

"Si,  si,  senorita!"  smiled  the  handsome  boy.  "Will 
you  make  me  the  favour  to  come  with  me?" 

"Bring  three  more  beers,  then,  senor,  and  put  us  at  a 
table  on  your  side,  mind!"  And  the  three,  Lola  again 
bright  with  embarrassment,  rose  and  followed  him  to  the 
sidewalk,  Jaime  slouching  in  a  brave  effort  to  swagger. 

With  their  surrounding  neighbours  they  made  a  strange 
company.  Here  was  an  aristocrat,  old,  pious,  absinthe- 
drinking,  who  had  bowed  to  them  as  they  sat  down  by 
him,  and  moved  his  glass  that  they  might  share  his  table, 
their  own  being  too  small  for  three.  There,  in  front  of 
them,  were  a  man  without  a  collar,  and  his  hatless  wife, 
smiling  and  exchanging  pretty  civilities,  unembarrassed, 
with  them  and  with  patricians  alike.  Even  as  Dulce  had 


22  The  Great  Way 

voiced  so  tactlessly,  Democracy  was  here  beneath  the 
awning,  whether  gold  Monarchy  reared  its  head  at 
Madrid,  whether  rouged  Anarchy  slept  in  some  quiet  room 
across  the  way.  The  summer-like  October  night  was 
beautiful  with  stars  and  soft  with  Spanish  air  that  stirred 
the  great  leaves  of  the  snake-skinned  planeta  trees  before 
them  in  the  Rambla.  Now  came  the  click  and  scrape  of 
a  brown  leaf,  falling  dead  to  the  trodden  yellow  dirt  before 
its  time.  Now,  the  rustle  of  a  wakeful  bird  stirring  above, 
gently  breaking  the  silence  of  the  great  feathered  army 
that  strangely  haunts  the  trees  of  this  one  short  block, 
sharply  drawing  its  boundaries  at  corner  and  corner 
above  the  daily  bird-market  of  its  gayer-plumed  fellows 
who  had  slipped  away,  at  sun-down,  in  myriads  of  little 
wooden  cages.  Off  below  the  further  trees  was  an  angular 
glimpse  of  the  next  Rambla,  Lola's  Rambla,  its  big 
branches  shadowing  its  empty  flower-stands,  its  white 
street  lights  falling  across  to  the  scrolled  stone  front  of 
the  old  baroque  Church  of  Xuestra  Senora,  and  helping  to 
cast  its  dreaded  Jesuit  shadow  into  Dulce's  street.  Now 
and  then,  between  them  and  the  hard  yellow  earth  of  the* 
Rambla,  street-cars,  some  with  horses,  some  without, 
bobbed  by  under  the  spreading  planetas;  just  opposite, 
the  theatre  drank  up  the  people  rambling  toward  it  from 
up  and  from  down.  Ever  and  again,  twos  and  threes  of 
blind  musicians  strummed  and  sang,  their  little  boy-apiece 
garnering  centimos  from  both  kindly  rich  and  kindly  poor. 
Once  a  piano  on  wheels,  dragged  by  a  small  long-eared 
mule,  drew  up  at  the  kerb,  and  the  mule's  still  smaller 
leader,  a  diminutive  girl,  climbed  earnestly  on  to  the 
hither  wheel  and  played  the  brow-beaten  piano  more 
earnestly  still,  while  her  father  fingered  a  mandoline  and 
sang,  his  blind  eyes  eternally  rolled  up.  .  .  .  And  now 
more  music,  more  musicians — always  blind,  blind,  blind. 

"That  is  from  a  fearful  sin !"  whispered  Dulce  to  Lola. 
"What  a  pity,  what  a  pity!  Do  you  notice,  darling, 
how  informed  I  am?" 

Their  second  beers  were  drawing  to  a  close,  and  she 


The  Royal  23 

leaned  luxuriously  back  in  her  chair,  glancing  about  for 
the  waiter. 

"I  am  happy !"  she  said  suddenly.  "I  have  never  been 
so  happy  in  my  life !" 

"Nor  I,"  said  Lola. 

"Nor — nor  I,"  said  Jaime. 

Again  she  looked  about  for  the  waiter,  and  clapped 
her  hands  for  him ;  but  though  he  was  nearby  and  turned, 
he  did  not  come  to  her  at  once,  for  he  was  in  conversation, 
so  serious  that  for  a  whole  instant  at  a  time  he  would 
forget  to  puff  his  cigarette,  with  a  gentleman  in  evening 
clothes  a  few  tables  away. 

Dulce,  waiting  patiently  to  catch  his  glance,  overheard 
their  exchange  of  words. 

"You  tell  me  what,  my  boy?  That  I  am  in  your  debt 
for  a  peseta?" 

"If  you  will  excuse  me,  yes,  Caballero.  It  was  in 
change,  a  mistake  on  my  part." 

"Well,  here  it  is,  and  welcome,  hombre.  But  I  do  not 
remember  it.  When  was  this?" 

"Three  days  ago,  seiior." 

"Three  days  ?  No  wonder  I  was  puzzled !  But  why 
did  you  not  tell  me  at  the  time — or  as  soon  as  you  found 
it  out?" 

"I  had  but  just  seen  you,  senor,  and  I  mistook  you 
for  an  Americano.  So  I  thought  you  did  not  understand 
our  money,  and  I  would  wait  until  you  did,  senor.  I  did 
not  wish  to  confuse  you." 

"I  thank  you,  hombre.  You  were  thoughtful.  But 
what  did  the  manager  say?  Did  he  not  complain?" 

"He  did  not  know,  senor." 

"Then  you  paid  it  yourself?  But  I  know  something 
of  wages  here — you  get  but  a  small  sum,  and  at  the 
latter  part  of  the  week,  you  could  not  afford  to  be  three 
days  without  this  money!" 

"No,  Caballero.  But  I  could  less  afford  to  hurt  your 
feelings !" 

The  boy's  eyes  went  toward  Dulce,  to  reassure  her  of 


24  The  Great  Way 

his  attention;  and  the  gentleman,  though  so  lately  mis- 
taken for  an  American,  evidently  was  not  mentally  alien 
to  Spanish  nature,  for  he  offered  the  youth  no  money 
largess  of  interest  on  the  peseta,  but  noticing  that  in  his 
earnestness  his  cigarette  had  actually  gone  out,  he  took 
the  stale  thing  from  his  fingers,  tossed  it  to  the  sidewalk, 
and  proffered  his  case.  Then  he  as  promptly  showed 
himself  not  fully  familiar  here,  either,  anyway  as  to 
tobacco  habits ;  for  a  limping  street-scavenger  had 
pounced  for  the  fallen  stub,  and  as  he  saw  the  wretched 
thing  pick  the  wretched  thing  up,  the  gentleman  with  a 
shiver  leaned  swiftly  forward  and  gave  him,  too,  a 
cigarette,  not  knowing  that  this  living-maker  had  gar- 
nered the  refuse  not  to  smoke  himself,  but  to  take  back 
to  the  factory. 

The  waiter  had  stepped  toward  Dulce;  and  as  he  did 
so,  inhaling  ecstatically,  and  his  expression  a  conflict 
between  that  ecstasy  and  an  apparent  regret  that  he  had 
lighted  a  thing  of  such  quality  now  instead  of  saving  it 
for  his  wedding  night  or  the  day  of  his  First  Communion, 
and  as  his  Caballero  sat  back  from  amazing  the  scavenger, 
she.  saw  the  gentleman's  face. 

"Dio  mio,  Lola,  but  it  is  the  Methicano!"  she 
whispered. 

"Yes,  Dulce,  I  have  been  watching  him.  And  he  has 
seen  you,  too." 

"And  remembers  me?" 

"I  am  sure  of  it !" 

Dulce  glanced  swiftly  toward  Jaime,  but  she  could  not 
see  his  face,  for  the  waiter  now  had  hidden  that  away. 

"Hombre,"  she  asked,  "what  is  that  pretty  drink  that 
the  gentleman  has?" 

"Vermouth,  senorita.  And  vermouth  is  a  drink  for  any 
gentleman !" 

"Three  vermouths,  hombre!" 

Lola  looked  rapidly  at  Jaime  as  the  waiter  stepped 
away.  A  small  dull  cloud  had  come  into  his  face.  But 


The  Royal  25 

Oulce's  prompt  hand  came  down  upon  his  arm,  and  it 
vanished. 

"Jaime,"  she  said,  her  voice  as  caressing  as  her  name, 
"that  is  the  Methicano  that  I  told  you  of!  Except  for 
the  dispute  about  him  Lola  and  I  would  not  be  intimate 
friends  this  minute — think  of  that!  And  though  he  will 
not  know  it,  we  will  drink  to  him  when  the  vermouths 
come,  no,  Jamie?" 

"What  you  like,  Dulce  mia." 

"Well,  Jaime,  I  like  friendship,  for  one  thing !" 

"And  me,  Dulce,  for  another?" 

The  question  was  so  unlike  him  that  she  stared  at  him 
in  surprised  silence  before  she  answered. 

"You  are  stupid,  Jaime.  Never  ask  girls  for  com- 
pliments. Wait  for  them  to  be  offered,  then  even  you 
may  get  a  few !" 

"I  adore  you,  Dulce!"  He  whispered  it,  and  mantled 
in  the  sudden  deep  colour  that  swept  her  face  as  she 
motioned  him  to  silence,  she  looked  instinctively  toward 
the  gentleman  in  evening  clothes.  Lola's  eyes  saw  Jaime's 
see  theirs.  The  waiter,  with  three  glasses,  stepped 
between. 

"Are  you  well  served,  Caballero?"  And  with  this  high 
tribute  to  Jaime,  he  smiled  at  him  and  then  at  Dulce. 

"Well  served,  well  served,  friend !"  stammered  Jaime, 
flushing. 

"Indeed,  prettily  served,  prettily!"  cried  Dulce.  "See, 
Jaime,  the  waiter  takes  me  for  your  wife.  You  fetched  a 
compliment  where  you  did  not  look  for  it,  just  as  I  said!" 
And  at  her  words  he  brightened. 

"I  need  not  name  the  toast,"  she  added,  touching  his 
glass  and  Lola's  with  her  own.  And  she  and  Lola  drank 
with  eyes  a-sparkle,  while  Jaime  merely  sipped,  his  eyes 
less  happy. 

The  Mexican  gentleman  had  turned  his  chair  a  little 
toward  them. 

"What  do  you  two  say,"  said  Dulce,  setting  down  her 
glass,  "to  having  some  oysters?  Lola,  my  dear,  nothing 


26  The  Great  Way 

than  oysters  could  be  more  fashionable,  or  show  off  one's 
manners  to  better  advantage!" 

Lola's  eyes  glistened. 

"Oysters,  Dulce  mia? — see  Jaime,  I  have  been  bold 
enough  to  use  your  own  word  to  her! — Dulce,  darling,  I 
have  eaten  many  Portuguese  oysters,  but  never  iced  by  a 
restaurant !  Only,  my  friend,  mi  querida,  you  will  be 
spending  a  fortune  if  your  eyes  stay  that  bright !" 

Dulce  clapped  her  hands  for  the  waiter  so  loudly,  and 
called  "Aqui!  Hombre!  O!  Aqui!"  so  often,  that  the 
handsome  boy  came  running. 

"Three  plates  of  oysters,  friend !  And  be  sure  to  bring 
the  forks  that  are  most  delicate,  and  plenty  of  ice.  Have 
you  noticed,  hombre,"  and  she  detained  him  by  her  slender 
fingers  on  his  sleeve,  "how  pretty  the  ice  looks  in  the 
lights  of  the  window  here,  with  the  glassed  fruits  doubled 
in  it?" 

"Yes,  I  have  noticed,  senorita,  but  the  ice  is  not  so 
bright  as  your  eyes !"  And  the  boy  was  gone. 

"I  do  not  like  oysters,"  said  Jaime. 

"Well,  Jaime  dearest,"  said  Dulce,  sighing,  "I  know 
they  are  not  good-looking.  And  all  I  can  think  is,  that 
the  first  man  who  ever  ate  one,  must  have  been  a  nasty 
dirty  thing.  But  to  clever  people,  they  are  delicious; 
and  if  you  cannot  be  gentilhombre  enough  to  swallow 
them,  give  yours  to  Lola,  who  you  can  see  craves  them 
despite  her  low  birth." 

"Darling,"  said  Lola  timidly,  catching  her  with 
trembling  fingers  by  the  arm,  "could  we  Hot  send  back 
the  oysters  if  you  thought  them  over?" 

Dulce  stared  at  her. 

"Why?"  she  demanded. 

"They — they  taste  like  a  tin  watch,"  said  Lola. 

Dulce's  stare  widened. 

"A  what?" 

"When  I  was  a  very  young  child  I  ate  my  watch  one 
day,  when  we  were  especially  hungry,"  said  Lola.  "I 
have  always  remembered  it." 


The  Royal  27 

"Well,"  said  Dulce  slowly,  "in  such  a  case  I  would 
never  make  you  eat  them,  Lola " 

"Oh,"  cried  Lola,  eagerly  catching  her  arm  again, 
"indeed,  I  promise  you  I  would  enjoy  them,  darling!  I 
love  to  be  reminded  of  the  time  I  had  a  watch — had  a 
watch  to  wear,  I  mean!  You  see,  we  never  got  it  back. 
My  sister  who  sleeps  with  me  says  she  hears  it  tick, 
which  used  to  frighten  me.  But  it  never  had  ticked, 
Dulce,  and  since  I  am  grown  up  I  have  found  that  out. 
And  you  must  know  by  now,  my  Dulce,  that  I  love  you 
more  than  anything  on  earth,  and  would  never  dare  to 
offend  you,  even  for  poor  Jaime's  sake,  lest  I  break  my 
heart;  but  I  feel  friendly  with  Jaime  because  he  loves 
you,  which  puts  him  and  me  in  the  same  hospital.  And 
I  think  he  has  his  feelings  hurt  over  the  oysters !" 

Dulce  turned  slowly  from  Lola  to  Jaime,  and  back 
again,  a  little  surprised  anger  mixing  with  her  wonder. 

"Do  you  think,  Lola,  that  I  am  getting  the  stupid 
boy  into  debt?  I  can  assure  you  he  is  the  one  who  will 
pay,  but  tfyat  is  for  manners,  and  not  out  of  his  wages! 
Let  me  tell  you,  I  would  order  a  watch  for  you,  if  they 
served  them  here!  Have  you  forgotten,  darling,  the  find 
of  paper  money  that  first  /,  and  then  he,  mentioned  to 
you?  /  am  not  likely  to  forget  that  money,  I  can 
promise  you  that,  Lola !"  And  as  Lola  caught  her  hand 
under  the  table  and  pressed  it  feverishly,  she  raised  her 
other  hand  and  poked  Jaime's  cheek  with  friendly  tolerance. 

"You  can  have  such  manners,  Jaime,  when  you  like! 
So  do  eat  the  oysters  and  enjoy  them.  Think,  you  are 
several  years  older  than  I  am,  and  you  act  like  a  child, 
sulking  when  there  is  nothing  to  sulk  at!  Can  you  not 
be  pleasant,  when  I  have  such  a  happiness  in  finding  a 
great  friend  to  give  me  amusement  and  affection?  Any- 
way, here  they  are,  you  baby !" 

She  patted  the  waiter's  arm,  sending  him  away. 

"Lola,  there  is  nothing  like  oysters  to  show  elegance 
with,  as  I  told  you.  Now,  I  have  no  doubt  the  Methicano 


28  The  Great  Way 

is  still  looking  at  you,  and  you  can  show  a  lady's  manners 
to  him  if  you  will  watch  how  7  eat  them !" 

In  the  small  space  of  chairs  and  tables  under  the 
awning  humanity  had  thinned  a  little,  leaving  enough  for 
intimate  gaiety ;  and  friendly  looks  and  laughs  were  pass- 
ing from  table  to  table.  In  the  softly  lighted  Rambla 
leaves  were  still  clicking  now  and  then,  as  though  death 
had  no  heart  to  be  less  suave  than  the  falling  of  an  occa- 
sional brown  leaf  on  to  yellow-brown  ground.  Though 
grown  seldom  and  more  seldom,  music  still  came  up,  and 
was  now  tinkling  in  a  row  of  three  blind  men  and  a 
bright-eyed  boy.  Through  its  melody  a  carriage  ground 
its  eternal  red-spoked  circles  to  a  stop  before  the  restau- 
rant, and  the  tall  Mexican  rose  and  went  out  to  it,  and 
stood  at  the  kerb  for  a  moment  smiling,  and  deprecant, 
hat  in  hand.  Dulce  noticed  how  deferentially  the  hat 
stayed  at  his  side. 

The  detail,  so  deep  in  the  spiritual  mark  that  it  made 
upon  her,  was  an  inevitable  one,  for  her  filched  view  of 
him  was  from  sidelong  eyes — eyes  that  lent  her,  for  these 
quick  few  moments  of  her  stilled  posture,  a  transient, 
smooth  dash  of  Orient  vivid  as  a  colour,  subtly  mixed 
with  her  peninsular  loveliness  as  hue  or  figure  of  an 
Eastern  manton  with  the  habit  or  the  indolent  air  of 
Spain. 

"To-morrow?"  she  could  hear  him  say.  "Certainly, 
and  with  pleasure!  I  had  given  you  up.  Surely  I  under- 
stand. You  are  tired.  To-morrow !  Good  night !" 

Dulce  knew  that  she  could  glimpse,  too,  if  she  would, 
between  the  surrounding  heads  as  the  carriage  rolled 
away,  the  fair,  frank  lines  of  lovely  foreign  faces — she 
was  sure  they  would  be  lovely;  the  soft  sheen  of  blonde 
hair — she  was  certain  it  would  be  the  exquisite  feminine 
gold  that  glinted  always  in  her  thoughts  of  the  human 
beings  of  England  and  America. 

But  though  she  had  swiftly  planned  her  swift  debonair 
movement  to  do  so,  against  the  impending  instant  that 
now  had  come  with  the  Methicano's  courtly  "Good  night/' 


The  EoydL  29 

a  thing  swifter,  a  power  strong  as  an  articulate  voice, 
had  come  against  her,  and  Dulce  did  not  look. 

It  was  the  moment,  eternally  recurrent  but  potent  only 
seldom,  and  then,  vigorous,  dynamic  with  the  nameless 
force  named  destiny,  when  some  precious  flower  of  the 
casual  sends  its  perfume,  vocal  as  speech,  from  around 
a  turn  in  the  path  of  life,  saying,  "I  am  good  and  beau- 
tiful ;  seize  me ;  drink  the  wine  of  my  newly  inspirational 
nature ;  make  me  yours !"  or  else,  "Fear  me ;  shun  me ;  go 
by  me,  blinded-eyed  and  breathless ;  my  splendour  is 
leopard-skinned,  my  scent  is  poison!" 

Youth  and  health  hear  both  these  messages.  It  is 
only  the  weary  pyramid  of  years  or  else  the  pain  that  is 
crowned  with  thorns  that  can  teach  that  the  two  voices 
are  one  voice,  that  the  speech  is  wordless  and  only  a 
perfume ;  that,  because  the  soul  is  translator,  the  first  cry 
is  to  the  pure,  the  other  to  the  unhappy. 

To  Dulce,  in  this  moment  of  the  pinnacle  of  her 
curiosity,  the  sudden  voice  was  that  of  humanity's  huge 
loyal  friend  of  which  she  had  made  her  hot  outstanding 
enemy:  Society.  And  to  such  percentage  of  her  soul  as 
was  capable  of  cowardice,  Dulce  could  not  look. 

The  grind  of  the  red-spoked  circles  passed  behind  her 
— and  with  it,  the  brief  shadow  of  the  bogie  from  upon 
her.  The  tall  foreigner,  his  hair  softly  gleaming  in  the 
artificial  light  and  light-coloured,  in  contrast  with  his 
black  clothes,  as  that  that  she  had  imagined  for  his 
vanished  ladies,  had  returned  to  his  chair. 

"After  all,  do  you  not  enjoy  the  oysters,  Jaime?'* 

Lola  was  gladly  swallowing,  forming  her  fingers  along 
her  fork  in  likeness  of  Dulce's,  forgetting  the  taste  of 
the  passing  oyster  in  her  eagerness  to  learn  the  delicate 
manner. 

"Did  you  hear  me,  Jaime  ?" 

Jaime's  eyes  were  upon  his  plate.  He  had  dutifully 
swallowed,  but  his  eyes  did  not  raise,  according  to  their 
custom,  like  those  of  the  happy  dog  that  has  done  well. 

"Never    mind    him,    Lola,"    said    Dulce.     "He    sulks, 


30  The  Great  Way 

the  stupid  boy,  once  in  so  often.  Did  I  tell  you,  dear, 
that  oysters  are  fashionable,  or  did  I  not,  answer  me 
that?  See,  the  Methicano  has  ordered  some!  Aqui! 
Hombre !  Three  vermouths !" 

A  woman  back  of  her  was  whispering  to  her  husband. 

"It  is  not  right!  The  foreigner  is  without  shame, 
with  her  man  there  beside  her!  It  is  not  the  girl's  fault. 
She  is  common  and  so  pretty!  These  foreign  men  are 
without  shame!" 

"It  is  the  girl's  fault,"  whispered  back  the  husband. 
"She  knows  better,  with  her  man  right  there!  She  is 
shameless !" 

"You  take  the  man's  part !"  said  the  woman  impatient- 
ly. "He  is  a  foreigner,  and  has  a  contempt  for  our 
customs !  Take  me  away !" 

"Dulce!"  whispered  Jaime,  imploringly,  suddenly  look- 
ing up.  "Dulce !" 

But  she  did  not  answer  him.     She  was  talking  to  Lola. 

"My  dear,  when  I  am  as  gay  as  this,  I  really  feel  as  if 
I  could  be  a  lady!  I  know  I  could!  I  am  not  boasting 
when  I  keep  saying  I  am  clever!  I  have  been  a  little  of 
an  actress,  you  know,  for  once,  when  my  luck  was  down, 
I  was  two  whole  nights  in  the  chorus  of  the  Alcazar. 
That  was  where  I  learned  to  use  my  fingers  with  these 
graceful  gestures.  And  if  your  Methicano  chooses  to 
watch,  my  dear,  it  is  none  of  Jaime's  business,  and  never 
will  be  till  he  knows  enough  to  pay  the  whole  rent.  Holy 
God,  but  I  am  happy !" 

And  she  ate  her  last  oyster  and  lifted  her  glass  of 
dwindling  vermouth. 

"Do  you  not  feel  as  if  we  were  ladies,  Lola?" 

A  trio,  blind,  and  with  its  customary  fourth  of  brown- 
eyed  boy,  had  halted  with  mandoline,  and  voice  this  time, 
and  violin,  upon  the  sidewalk,  and  a  thin  ServiUana 
filtered  through  the  company. 

"Dio,  but  I  would  like  to  dance !"  cried  Dulce.  "That 
takes  me  back  to  Sevilla  quicker  than  a  train  could!" 
And  her  arms  waved  above  the  glittering  table,  her  white 


The  Royal  31 

slender  fingers  snapping  in  the  rhythmic  cracking  beats 
of  casta/nuelas,  and  her  eyes  meeting,  meeting  again,  and 
perhaps  again,  the  foreign  eyes  that  were  constantly 
upon  her.  As  the  tune  stopped,  she  again  sought  Lola's 
hand  beneath  the  table,  but  dropped  it  to  fetch  her  purse 
from  out  her  waist,  and  put  two  coppers  on  the  plate  that 
the  small  boy  was  proffering  at  their  table. 

"Play  more,  boy  !     Tell  them  to  play  more !" 

The  small  boy  bowed.  "Si,  senorita  !  Gracias !"  And 
after  a  moment  the  thin  voice  of  the  blind  woman  rose 
again:  "Do  not  cry,  do  not  cry,  Bebete!"  and  Dulce 
hummed  with  it. 

Lola  bent  her  head  nearer  to  her  friend's,  to  listen, 
and  as  the  notes  came  to  the  lingering  refrain,  it  was 
Dulce's  humming  voice  that  the  people  were  hearing. 

An  approving  laugh,  a  ripple  of  urging  hands  came  at 
the  end,  and  the  plate  of  the  smiling  small  boy  was  quickly 
filled  all  over  again. 

Dulce  smiled  even  more  than  he  did,  all  about  her;  and 
as  the  blind  three,  smiling  with  the  strange  sympathetic 
humour  of  the  blind,  twanged  into  Barcelona's  favourite 
song  of  the  hour,  she  stood  up  in  her  place,  and  her  voice 
broke  into  the  dulcet  words  of  the  apache  waltz,  the 
"Cavalier  de  la  Luna." 

"We  have  no  use  for  the  dance  new  and  catchy, 
We  damn  good  sorts  who  slide  up  through  the  night, 
We  want  the  real  moonlit  waltz  named  Apache, 
Supple,  seductive,  quick,  wicked  and  light! 
Silently  each  chap  grabs  hold  of  his  sweet  one; 
Then  makes  her  skirt  flirt  the  dirt  to  the  moon; 
Swiftly,  abruptly  he  hands  her  a  neat  one; 
Then  comes  the  whirlpool  tune — 
La  la  la  la  la  la  la!" 

And,  swift  upon  the  lilting  chuckle  of  the  stanza's  end, 
Dulce's  voice  came  into  the  sensuous  refrain  and  distilled 
itself  exquisitely  through  the  silence  of  the  quiet  Ramblas : 


32  The  Great  Way 

"Friends,  this  is  the  Brown  Walts, 

Plain-girls-and-boys-o'-the-town  -waltz, 

Come-pick-me-up-knock-me-down  -waltz, 

Where  you  solicit,  and  kiss  it  or  miss  it — 

Oh,  la  la! 

Yes,  this  is  the  Moon  Waltz, 

This  is  the  laugh-of-the-loon  waltz, 

Just-try-to-kiss-me-too-soon  waits — 

Night!  .  .  .  and  light!  .  .  .  and — 

Ha-ha-ha!" 

An  instant's  burst  of  approving  hands,  of  quick  cries 
of  "Sh-sh-sh!"  and,  her  cadenced  voice  graphic  as  her 
swaying  body,  she  glided  into  the  refrain's  repetition  with 
its  further  words  exhilarant,  insinuant,  intoxicant. 

"Oh,  this  is  the  tune,  friends! 
We're  Cavaliers  of  the  Moon,  -friends! 
Each  boy  swoops  down  like  a  loon,  friends, 
Wild   with    moon-madness,    moon-badness,    moon-gladness — 
Oh,  ta  ta! 

Ah,  you  know  the  brown  tune! 
This  is  the  talk-o'-the-town  tune! 
This  is   the   rip-in-the-gown    tune — 
Dance!  .  .  .  and  trance!  .  .  .  and — 
Ha-ha-ha  !" 

Chatter  had  ceased  entirely,  and  that  strange  little 
miracle  that  grows  up  suddenly  among  men  once  in  a 
long  space  had  come  upon  the  guests  of  the  Royal  to  the 
tune  of  the  insinuating  French  song — the  little  social 
miracle  of  community  of  vision,  uniquity  of  feeling:  what 
Dulce  felt,  they  saw.  To  all  of  them,  in  their  oneness  of 
mood,  the  Ramblas,  the  restaurant  vitality,  the  essence 
of  Little  Paris  all  about  them,  became  Big  Paris,  but  the 
big  Paris  of  its  detours,  its  by-paths  of  architecture  and 
of  humanity,  lit  by  her  voice,  which  was  the  moonlight — 
the  green  moonlight  of  great  spaces,  but  which  perforce 
streamed  down  into  the  narrow  streets  and  upon  the  evil 
people  which  were  her  song;  streets  and  people  narrow 


The  Royal  33 

and  evil,  yet  whose  love — love  whatsoever — can  be  trans- 
lated into  romance  and  beauty  by  those  who  sit  without 
and  think  of  it  ...  or  sing  of  it.  ... 

And  as  if  he  were  there  to  picture  the  Apache,  Jaime's 
collar  had  turned  up  about  his  ears,  and  he  was  shrunk 
down  and  back  in  his  chair  like  someone  forgotten  and 
sleeping. 

Again  a  loud  burst  of  approving  hands,  cries,  now,  of 
"More!  More!"  and  Dulce  sang  again,  her  body  sway- 
ing to  the  melody,  line  and  line  on  to  the  reaching  of  the 
giddy  refrain  again: 

"Oh,  this  is  the  tune,  friends! 
We're  Cavaliers  of  the  Moon,  friends! 
Each  boy  swoops  down  like  a  loon,  fr " 

With  a  sickening  crash,  her  table  fell;  and  another. 
Two  women  screamed.  Jaime  had  jumped  and  swooped. 
The  waiter  was  running,  and  another  waiter.  Lola's  arms 
went  about  her. 

The  tall  foreigner  was  on  his  feet,  blood  seeping  down 
his  sleeve.  The  waiters  and  three  men  held  Jaime. 

"Holy  God!  Holy  God!"  said  Dulce,  and  she  shrank 
back  against  the  window. 

The  musicians  crept  away. 

There  was  a  babble  of  voices. 

People  were  leaving. 

A  municipal  guard  came  running  down  the  Rambla. 

The  green  stripes  on  his  white  uniform  made  a  con- 
fusing zig-zag  in  her  eyes  as  he  jumped  by  her  into  the 
crowd,  and  she  stood  helplessly  against  the  window, 
trembling.  She  was  alone  there.  Everyone  had  left  her. 
Even  Lola  had  left  her.  She  saw  the  empty  tables,  and 
the  street  in  front  of  her,  and  heard  the  din  of  voices  at 
one  side.  Above  it,  she  heard  the  tall  foreigner's  voice. 

"Let  him  go.  Let  him  go.  It  is  nothing,  I  tell  you. 
He  may  be  drunk.  It  was  my  fault.  Let  him  go.  I  tell 
you  it  is  nothing." 


84  The  Great  Way 

Then  again  came  the  hateful  din  of  voices,  and  she 
clung  desperately,  with  slipping  hands,  to  the  window 
back  of  her.  Hot  terrified  tears  sprang  to  her  eyes  as 
she  felt  her  palms  sliding  downward  on  the  glass,  but 
suddenly  she  felt  Lola's  arms  around  her  again. 

"Darling !  Darling !  Dulce !  It  is  nothing !  My  God, 
oh,  my  God,  your  face!  Darling,  darling,  it  is  nothing, 
I  tell  you !  They  will  let  him  go !  Dulce,  they  are  going 
to  let  him  go !  Dulce,  Dulce,  I  will  scream  if  you  look  so ! 
Your  face!  Oh,  Dio  mio,  your  face!  Dulce,  I  tell  you 
they  will  let  him  go!  The  Mejicano  says  that  it  is 
nothing,  so  they  will  let  him  go  !  Dulce !  Dulce!" 

"Get  him  away,  then,"  whispered  Dulce.  "Get  him 
away,  and  lose  him  for  me!  Get  him  away,  do  you  hear?" 
And  as  Lola  left  her  again,  again  she  sank  back  against 
the  window,  covering  her  face,  trembling. 

The  municipal  guard  came  over  to  her,  but  she  would 
not  take  down  her  hands,  or  answer  him,  and  when  he  had 
left  her,  once  more  she  felt  that  she  was  alone — hopelessly, 
utterly  alone. 

She  knew  that  Lola  was  gone,  that  Jaime  was  gone. 

Even  the  din  of  voices  now  seemed  distant. 

But  when  she  dropped  her  hands  like  two  dead  sticks 
of  wood  and  looked  about  her,  she  saw  faces  not  only 
here,  not  only  there,  but  everywhere — inquisitive  faces, 
gazing  curiously  at  her.  The  two  waiters  stood  by, 
hesitating  in  the  doorway. 

As  her  hands  had  dropped,  and  her  dazed  eyes  stared 
about,  the  voices  had  dropped,  too,  into  dead  silence.  And 
as  if  he  were  some  figure  in  a  picture,  she  saw  the  tall 
foreigner,  still  by  his  table  with  the  blood  on  his  slashed 
sleeve,  standing,  watching  her. 

She  felt  hideous  colour  sweeping  up  from  her  throat, 
but  even  as  she  tried  to  take  her  eyes  from  him,  she  saw 
him  step  toward  her,  his  head  raised,  his  hat  falling  in  his 
hand  to  his  side  ...  as  it  had  fallen  when  he  walked  out 
to  that  carriage.  .  .  . 


The  Royal  35 

She  felt  his  elbow  lifted  near  her,  toward  her ;  and  she 
heard  his  voice. 

"Senorita,  I  must  bring  you  to  your  home.  Will  you 
make  me  the  favour  to  take  my  arm?" 

She  struggled  in  her  dry  throat  for  three  words:  "I 
am  ashamed!"  And  then  struggled  again,  for  though 
she  felt  them  in  her  mouth  they  made  no  sound.  "I  am 
ashamed !"  But  still  they  would  not  sound,  and  gulping, 
she  placed  her  shaking  arm  under  his,  and  followed  by 
hushed  voices  and  staring  eyes  they  walked  out  into  the 
Rambla. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CABALLEEO   OF   THE  MOON 

HER  mind  whirled  as,  leaning  against  him  for  mental 
support  though  she  was  bodily  shaken  too,  she  walked 
beside  his  tall  figure  into  the  Calle  del  Carmen — passing 
Lola's  dark  deserted  flower-stand,  passing  the  baroque 
church  with  its  semi-modern,  semi-Moorish  arabesques, 
passing  the  blackened  shops — into  the  blacker  hallway. 
Here  she  broke  from  his  arm  and  climbed  before  him. 
Igniting  her  candles  she  stared  with  eyes  that  did  not 
blink  in  the  waver  of  flaring  light,  at  the  gaudy  riot  of 
clothes  and  ribbons,  at  the  deserted  chairs,  at  the  wreck 
of  the  recent  little  feast,  now  far  back  in  memory  as  if 
the  sudden  arm  of  Jaime's  knife  had  hacked  it  away  from 
her  life  and  cast  it  back  across  a  century. 

Rising  among  the  stale  food  was  a  bottle  not  quite 
empty,  and  she  absently  lifted  it  and  set  it,  with  a  glass 
rinsed  at  her  washstand,  at  the  edge  of  the  table,  in  a 
space  swept  by  one  clattering  swathe  of  her  arm. 

"Make  me  the  favour  to  drink  that,"  she  said.  "It  is 
worthy  of  you,  no  matter  what  your  caste.  It  is  Amon- 
tillado"; and  as  he  sat  mechanically  at  her  bidding  she 
hurled  herself  face-downward  across  the  bed,  dry-eyed, 
soundless ;  save  for  a  twitching  at  her  wrists  and  ankles, 
motionless. 

When  she  had  heard  him  push  aside  the  bottle  and 
glass,  she  roused  herself,  coming  to  a  sitting  posture  on 
the  edge  of  the  disordered  bed,  pushing  back  her  hair  with 
both  hands,  their  fingers  trembling. 

She  felt  his  eyes  upon  her  in  a  waiting  look.  Her  own 
were  cast  down,  her  under  lip  was  dented  by  her  small 
white  teeth.  Presently  she  looked  up,  breathing  quickly 

36 


Caballero  of  the  Moon  37 

but  meeting  his  eyes  squarely,  with  a  quality  of  forced 
fearlessness  in  her  dark  steady  gaze.  Her  voice  was  low, 
not  steady  at  all — yet  determined,  with  the  same  forced 
character. 

"Caballero  ...  I  do  not  know  whether  in  Methico 
you  have  a  great  meaning  in  that  word,  but  we  have  here 
in  old  Spain.  .  .  .  Caballero,  I  have  this  to  tell  you  .  .  . 
that  I  am  ashamed  for  the  first  time  in  my  life.  Never 
was  I  ashamed  before,  even  in  the  beginning,  when  I 
left  my  father's  home  far  down  in  the  south — in  Cadiz. 
And  I  have  not  even  blushed  since  very  early  in  the  fight ; 
yet  I  blushed  over  there  at  the  Royal  to-night,  inside 
of  me  if  not  outside,  where  I  know  I  was  very  white,  if 
I  can  believe  what  my  sick  stomach  told  me.  I  am  blush- 
ing even  now,  for  my  soul,  if  I  have  one,  got  redder  still 
when  you  came  over  to  me,  like  a  Don  to  a  Dona  in 
trouble,  and  said  as  no  man  ever  said  to  me  before,  that 
you  would  fetch  me  home.  .  .  .  Caballero." 

Though  he  seemed  to  strive  for  some  word,  he  did  not 
answer,  and  his  eyes  had  fallen  before  hers. 

"That  soul  of  mine,  if  there  is  anything  left  of  it  to 
go  where  it  belongs  when  I  die,  had  got  as  red  as  your 
arm  still  must  be  where  Jaime  knifed  you.  You  make 
light  of  that,  and  you  may  be  correct  enough;  but  I 
would  cheerfully  and  gladly  see  him  cut  into  small  pieces 
and  fed  to  a  dog  for  it,  although  the  day  I  die  myself  I 
will  still  be  fond  of  him,  poor  idiot  thing,  after  the  way 
I  aways  have  been  fond  of  him,  such  as  that  is.  And  as 
for  you,  Caballero,  I  would  as  cheerfully  and  gladly  get 
down  on  my  knees  and  pray  to  you  as  I  used  to  do,  and 
still  pretend  to  do,  to  the  Virgin  and  her  Saints.  I  would 
cheerfully  and  gladly  let  you  take  me  out  in  broad  day- 
light and  kick  me  the  whole  length  of  the  Gran  Via,  as  a 
show  for  the  people  at  noon,  from  here  to  the  bull-fight, 
through  all  the  streets  where  I  have  made  my  living,  so 
you  left  enough  life  in  me  to  kiss  your  hand  at  the  end. 
.  Caballero." 


38  The  Great  Way 

He  raised  the  hand  she  spoke  of  with  a  tremor  of 
protest. 

"I  would,  Caballero.  I  would  let  you  kick  me  up  the 
whole  steep  hill  of  Mont  Juich,  and  throw  me  off  the  top 
of  it,  over  the  fortress  wall  where  Ferrer  was  shot,  and 
my  ashamed  soul  would  be  kissing  that  hand  all  the  way 
down  till  my  body  hit  the  dirty  black  coal-yards  or  the 
clean  blue  Mediterranean." 

"It  was  my  fault,"  he  said,  looking1  up  swiftly  and 
then  down  again.  "And — and  you  should  not  talk  like 
that!  What  gives  you  such  thoughts?  They  are 
terrible!" 

"In  my  line,  life  is  terrible,"  said  Dulce. 

Again  he  looked  at  her,  again  his  swift  lids  fell,  cover- 
ing the  vague  disturbance  in  his  eyes. 

"Shall  I  alter  my  thoughts  for  you,  Caballero?  I  am 
a  Spanish  woman,  and  I  can  do  even  that  for  you.  Life 
is  not  terrible  then,  if  you  say  not.  The  men  never  think 
so,  for  they  do  not  have  to.  They  bring  their  money  to 
the  Trudge  Market,  and  there  are  we  doing  the " 

Once  more  his  swift  look  met  her  eyes. 

"To  the  what?" 

"To  the  Trudge  Market.  That  is  what  I  call  it.  I 
am  quite  clever,  and  I  occupy  myself  thinking  a  lot  while 
I  trudge,  and  calling  things  names." 

"You — you  are  a  strange  girl." 

"Yes,"  said  Dulce,  "that  is  just  what  I  often  call 
myself,  and  it  has  a  lot  of  different  meanings,  too.  There 
is  one  place  in  the  Bible,  which  I  got  the  devil  for  read- 
ing, by  the  way,  especially  as  the  one  I  got  hold  of  was 
not  the  regular  Spanish  Bible,  though  it  was  in  Spanish, 
where  it  uses  that  same  word  'strange'  to  mean  just  such 
women  as  keep  the  Trudge " 

"You — you  must  not  talk  like  that !" 

"I  have  noticed  that  men  do  not  like  it.  So  I  should 
have  known  better.  But  you  are  the  first  one  that  I  ever 
wanted  to  obey.  If  you  say  I  must  not,  then  I  must  not." 

In  their  silence,   he  rose  suddenly  and  walking  over 


Caballero  of  the  Moon  39 

to  her  clothes-box,  began  slowly  to  replace,  with  nervous 
fingers,  the  gay  fabrics  scattered  about  it  on  the  floor. 
As  his  unaccountable  labour  came  nearer  to  the  bed, 
she  slid  off  of  it  abruptly  with  a  strange  look  of  fright, 
and  sat  staring  at  his  movements,  wonderingly,  from  a 
chair. 

She  drank  in  every  line  of  his  slender  face,  dark  though 
so  much  lighter  than  a  Spanish  Spaniard's ;  of  his  slender 
body,  graceful  as  the  bodies  of  her  countrymen  but  taller 
— somehow,  she  thought,  stronger;  of  his  light,  waving, 
glinting,  heavy  hair,  heavy  like  money,  yet  vital,  full  of 
life.  Only  his  deep  eyes  she  could  not  see.  She  had  not 
known  their  colour  yet.  In  the  sunlight,  she  had  been  too 
filled  with  excitement;  in  the  candlelight,  though  it  had 
shone  it  had  not  shown. 

"Caballero,  make  me  the  favour  to  tell  me  your  name 
— before  you  go.  The  given  name.  The  last  I  do  not 
ask." 

"Jose.  Jose  Luis.  My  friends  call  me  Jose  Luis — 
both." 

He  had  reached  the  bed  and  was  lifting  the  gay  ribbons 
in  clusters  in  his  hands. 

"Why — why,  Caballero,  do  you  put  the  things  away?" 

He  did  not  turn  as  he  spoke. 

"We.  .  .  .  They.  ..." 

"Cab — senor "  She  spoke  sharply,  in  a  kind  of 

terror.  "Senor,  I — senor,  though  I  spoke  to  you  to-day 
and  you  knew  what  I  was  and  why  I  spoke — to-night,  I 
have  not  asked  that  of  you — I  did  not  expect  that — 
Caballero,  I  have  not  forgotten  your  arm.  I  will  bind 
it  for  you  before  you  go.  Yes,  yes !  I  plead  with  you 
to  come  here !" 

She  had  risen  from  the  chair  and  he  came  and  stood 
before  her. 

"It  is  truly  nothing,  senorita." 

"It  is  everything.    Dulce  is  my  name." 

"It  is  nothing,  Dulce." 

"I  did  not  hope  for  you  to  call  me  so,  senor.     I  thank 


40  The  Great  Way 

you.  And  I  thank  God. — Make  me  the  favour  to  take  off 
your  coat." 

He  did  as  she  bade  him,  in  silence. 

"And  the  linen  shirt,  Caballero." 

Hesitating  for  a  moment,  he  disengaged  the  wounded 
arm. 

"Oh !"  she  breathed,  sharply  drawing  in  her  breath. 

"It  is  dry  already,  you  see.    It  is  not  much." 

"It  is  very  much.    The  undershirt — is  it  expensive?" 

"No,  Dulce."  There  was  a  little  nervous  quiver  in  his 
laugh  and  she  flushed  crimson  as  she  stepped  to  her 
rickety  dressing-table. 

She  returned  to  him  with  a  pair  of  small  scissors  in  her 
hand. 

"Can  you  lift  the  arm,  Caballero?" 

"Yes— Dulce." 

"Make  me  the  favour  to  rest  it  on  my  shoulder." 

She  trembled  violently  as  he  did  so,  and  the  scissors 
shook  as  she  raised  them  to  the  sleeve.  Slowly,  cau- 
tiously, quivering,  she  cut  the  sleeve  away  from  around 
the  clotted  spot.  Once  it  pulled  perceptibly  and  again 
she  drew  in  her  breath.  "Holy  God!" 

"It  did  not  hurt." 

"It  hurt  me,  Caballero."  She  drew  off  the  severed 
sleeve  and  dropped  it  to  the  floor. 

"Dio  mio!  Can  a  man's  arm  be  so  white?  It  is  as 
white  and  smooth  as  mine!"  Then  she  bit  her  lip  and 
stooped  to  regain  the  sleeve.  Cutting  a  long  strip  from 
it  she  stepped  to  the  washstand  and  dipped  the  end  of  it  in 
water.  She  pressed  the  wet  cloth  to  the  sticky  remnant 
on  his  arm.  At  last  it  fell  away. 

"That,  white  Caballero  of  the  Moon,  I  shall  keep  for 
ever  and  ever.  It  is  so  red  it  shall  remind  me  to  be 
ashamed  for  the  rest  of  my  life." 

"You  must  not  say  that,  Dulce.     It  was  my  fault." 

"If  you  say  so,  it  must  have  been.     But  I  know  better." 

She  was  trembling  again  as  she  tenderly  and  more 
tenderly  bound  the  wound. 


Caballero  of  the  Moon  41 

"There — it  is  done  now,  Caballero."  She  turned  away 
from  him  and  stood  by  the  window,  her  voice  almost  a 
whisper  and  trembling  as  her  body  as  she  spoke.  "Cabal- 
lero, will  you  do  one  more  sweet  thing  for  me?  Just 
one  more  sweet  thing?  Will  you  let  me  call  you  by  your 
name  before  you  go?" 

"I — I  do  not  intend  to  go,  Dulce." 

She  turned  swiftly,  her  shaking  hands  stretched  out 
instinctively  before  her. 

"Senor,  senor,  I  beg  of  you!  I  cannot  pay  you  that 
way !  In  the  name  of  white  God  I  cannot !  Oh,  I  be- 
seech you !  Let  us  have  plain  speech,  senor !  I  tell  you, 
since  what  you  have  done  I  would  walk  with  bare  feet 
through  hell  for  you.  Only  not  that!  Oh,  I — I  do  not 
know  how  to  tell  you  what  I  mean!  Help  me  by  trying 
to  understand,  senor!  Though  there  is  better  blood  in 
me  from  my  line,  far  back,  than  you  might  think,  still 
I  am  an  ignorant  girl,  senor,  and  though  I  can  sing  a 
song,  or  could  ape  a  lady  with  a  little  training,  still  my 
speech,  for  all  its  castellano  lisp  and  drawl,  is  unedu- 
cated, and  I  do  not  know  as  I  stand  here  how  to  tell  you. 
Look  straight  in  my  eyes,  Caballero,  and  try  to  under- 
stand the  few  stupid  words  as  I  say  them :  Caballero,  it  is 
through  you  that  I  am  ashamed!  You  have  taught  me 
to  be  ashamed  of  how  I  live!  Caballero,  all  the  pride  left 
standing  in  me  from  an  old  race  of  haughty  people,  fallen 
into  the  starving  dust  of  Cadiz  as  they  may  be,  is  burning 
with  shame — is  squirming,  so  help  me  holy  Virgin ! — as 
you  look  into  my  eyes  and  hear  me  tell  you  now  that  to 
have  you  stay  here  would  be  like  my  having  a  holy  pure 
man-saint  to  stay  with  me !  ...  So  in  the  name  of  God, 
senor,  I  plead  with  you  to  go !" 

His  slender  face  grew  slowly  red,  then  slowly  white 
as,  still  gazing  into  her  eyes,  he  stepped  closer  and  closer 
to  her.  He  seemed  to  be  vainly  summoning  words  that 
refused  to  come.  She  thought,  as  his  face  came  near  to 
hers,  that  the  colour  she  had  hunted  in  his  eyes  was  violet 
— it  was  so  deep  a  blue.  A  huge  fear,  queer  to  her,  new, 


42  The  Great  Way 

and  terrible,  lit  her  own  big  eyes  and  sent  strange  trem- 
bling up  and  down  her  body.  She  needed  unreasoningly 
to  cry  out,  and  could  not.  Her  eyes  were  holding  his, 
his  holding  hers,  in  a  riveting  power.  She  felt  his  naked 
arm  again  upon  her  shoulder,  throbbing  against  the  cours- 
ing quiver  of  her  shaking  form.  She  lifted  her  hands 
to  shut  away  her  face,  striving  and  striving  to  bring 
them  upward  in  the  whelm  of  soul  terror  that  had  come 
upon  her,  but  they  merely  stayed  hovering  between  his 
body  and  hers  and  she  felt  the  fingers  of  his  free  hand 
groping  to  find  them. 

At  last  his  voice  came,  low,  halting,  husky. 

"I  leant  to  stay!     I — I  want  to  stay!" 

Her  eyes,  unable  to  waver,  widened  even  more,  two  ter- 
rified brilliant  black  discs  of  questioning,  searching,  ago- 
nizing unbelief,  her  lips  opened  as  if  to  scream. 

"Holj  God!"  she  whispered.     "Holy  God!" 


CHAPTER  V 

FLOWERS    OF    THE    SUN 

GOLD  morning  sunlight  poured  slanting  into  the  room, 
gilding  the  potted  mignonette  along  the  window-sill. 
Dulce  tiptoed  through  it  softly  to  her  door,  and  having 
pulled  this  close  behind  her,  leaned  out  over  the  deep 
square  well,  into  which  parody  of  a  patio  the  soiled  roof- 
glass  filtered  a  diluted  sky-colour  down  to  the  street  level. 

"Aqui !  Hombre  pequeno !  Here,  you,  limpia  botas ! 
Come  up  here!'* 

A  small  yellow  pretty-faced  boy  scrambled  up  to  her. 

"Clean  boots,  senorita?" 

"No,  little  botas.  Here  are  two  pesetas.  Keep  a  real 
for  yourself,  and  spend  the  rest  for  roses.  Red  ones, 
and  good  ones,  with  long  stems.  Go  to  the  girl  nearest 
the  corner,  on  that  side.  Mind  that,  now,  and  do  not 
say  where  you  came  from.  And  mind  you  come  up 
quietly." 

"Gracias,  senorita !"    And  he  scrambled  down. 

Dulce  went  softly  back  into  the  room,  and  put  it  in 
order,  setting  its  discard  bit  by  bit  outside  the  door,  and 
decking  her  dressing-table  with  green  and  blue  ribbons 
where  the  sunlight  shimmered  on  from  the  tender  green 
mignonette ;  fetching  new  water,  smoothing  his  clothes  in 
layers  within  the  cupboard,  covering  her  chest  and  the 
dull  chairs  with  Castilian  laces  and  two  vast,  rich-coloured 
mantles  of  Manila ;  all  to  the  music  of  his  quiet  breathing. 

Ever  and  again  she  stood  by  his  pillow,  gazing  down 
at  him.  "Sleep  on,  Jose  Luis !  Sleep  on,  my  own !" 

When  the  boy  came  she  kissed  him  and  sent  him  away 
with  a  second  real  and  a  whisper.  "The  saints  bless  you 
for  coming  quietly." 

43 


44  The  Great  Way 

Once  more  she  stood  beside  the  bed,  the  flowers  in 
her  hands.  "Sleep  on,  my  own !  If  it  were  not  a  wicked- 
ness greater  than  any  I  have  ever  done,  I  would  wish 
you  should  never  wake!  That  you  were  dead,  having 
kissed  me.  That  you  would  never  kiss  again,  except  such 
saints  as  desired  it!"  She  began  to  lay  the  flowers,  one 
by  one,  upon  the  coverlet.  "Mi  Dios,  but  it  looks  as  if 
I  had  my  wish,  and  I  were  paying  for  it!"  She  smiled 
as  she  put  another  rose,  and  another,  over  his  body. 
"There,  my  beloved,  my  all  but  God,  you  will  feel  that 
on  your  cheek  when  you  wake  up !  If  it  kisses  you  there, 
it  is  no  more  than  I  have  done,  God  be  thanked !" 

She  went  to  the  window  and  leaned  out,  gazing  into 
the  awakened  street.  Shops  were  open.  Men  strolled 
leisurely  by  to  work.  Already  music  was  abroad.  Al- 
ready, Jaime  must  be  in  the  coal-yards,  smeared  with 
black  powder. 

"Where  did  the  poor  thing  sleep,  I  wonder?  Dio, 
Dio,  but  I  cannot  bear  to  think  of  a  broken  heart  this 
day !" 

"Do  not  cry,  do  not  cry,  Bebete!"  floated  up  to  her 
in  the  shrill  voice  of  a  blind  woman  to  the  tinkle  of  a 
mandoline. 

"You  are  right,  you  poor  blind  thing,  I  shall  not !"  she 
sighed.  When  she  drew  in  her  head,  he  was  blinking, 
wondering  at  the  colourful,  sun-lighted  room,  at  the  soft 
sweet  fragrance  of  its  air. 

In  a  voice  as  soft  and  sweet,  "Jose !  Jose  Luis !"  she 
cried ;  and  slipping  to  her  knees,  encircled  his  limp  arm 
in  both  of  hers,  then  lifted  forward  his  head  and  kissed 
the  thick  glinting  sunlit  hair.  "It  is  time  for  coffee. 
And  time  for  rolls.  And  you  are  not  dressed.  What 
would  Saint  Peter  say?  Look  at  the  clock!" 

"Would  he  say  that?  Are  there  clocks  in  heaven, 
Dulce?  Yes — I  see  one!" 

"My  own !  You  talk  so  at  this  hour?  But  I  have 
earned  it,  for  look  at  the  flowers  to  greet  you,  Caballero ! 
While  you  slept,  I  have  been  out  to  the  Rambla,  buying 


Flowers  of  the  Sun  45 

them  for  you.  Can  you  believe  it,  Jose  Luis? — Holy 
God,  what  a  liar  I  am !  When  you  love  someone  with 
all  your  soul  and  whatever  brains  you  have,  I  suppose  it 
is  fashionable  to  tell  the  truth!  I  sent  a  boy  for  them." 

He  clasped  her  hand  about  a  rich  red  bloom  and 
brought  the  fingers  and  the  flower  to  his  lips. 

"They  are  like  you,  my  sweet." 

"What  did  you  call  me?" 

"My  sweet.     It  is  your  name  in  English." 

"Talk  to  me  in  English,  Jose  Luis.  I  know  only 
oysterce  and  biff-steck — which  should  be  enough  for  any- 
one, I  suppose,  after  all!  Especially  when  you  put  that 
other  strange  word  'pleece'  to  them.  I  will  go  out  while 
you  dress,  and  buy  breakfast.  Will  you  be  quick?" 

"Kiss  me  before  you  go." 

"No." 

"Yes,  instantly!" 

"No !"  She  bent  down  close  to  him.  "No.  No.  No. 
No." 

Then  she  went  to  the  door.  But  she  turned,  and  came 
back  to  him. 

"But  I  always  do  things  by  sevens — it  is  lucky.  There- 
fore: No.  No.  No." 


CHAPTER  VI 

TRAFFIC 

"WHAT  does  it  all  mean,  I  wonder!" 

They  were  on  Tibidabo,  high  above  the  city,  whose 
arteries  stretched  below  them  as  if  drawn  on  a  map.  This 
afternoon  the  sky  was  cloudless,  the  warmer  middle  hours 
having  drunk  up  through  the  thirsty  sun  all  the  gentle 
haze  that  had  lain  on  sea  and  mountains  in  the  morning; 
now  the  ether  stretched  up  into  one  vast  clear  blue,  and 
beyond  the  city  lay  as  vast  a  sheet  of  blue  deeper  yet  as 
brilliant,  touched,  miles  and  miles  away,  by  the  mark  of 
the  Balearic  Isles;  while  behind  them,  the  hills  extended 
in  higher  and  higher  piles  of  white  and  green  and  lavender 
into  mazes  of  circling  mountain  forms  that  led  the  tortu- 
ous way  to  the  Pyrenees. 

"What,  Duke?" 

"All  this!" 

Yet  when  she  said  "all  this"  she  did  not  intend  the 
beauty  spread  about  them,  though  her  eyes  were  absorb- 
ing it  contemplatively;  she  referred  to  the  beauty  that, 
apart  from  all  seas  and  skies  and  mountains,  was  within 
them,  between  them.  They  sat  on  a  little  balcony  of  a 
deserted  pavilion,  perched  over  the  funicular  railway  whose 
car  climbed  steeply  up  toward  them  now  and  again,  to 
bring  a  few  passengers  or  to  fetch  a  few  away.  The 
month  was  growing  cool,  and  it  was  late  in  the  year  for 
many  visitors*  They  sat  alone,  undisturbed,  above  the 
big  panorama. 

"I  do  not  know,  Dulce.  I  suppose  everyone  wonders 
what  life  means." 

"Yet  you  did  not  like  it  when  I  called  it  terrible.  I 

46 


Traffic  47 

have  very  often  wondered.  But  never  this  way,  Jose 
Luis,  never  this  way !" 

Talkative  as  her  nature  was,  her  every  fibre  demand- 
ing the  expression  of  herself,  and  few  of  words  as  her 
lover's  habit  seemed,  yet  she  had  learned  more  of  him 
than  he  of  her. 

She  had  learned  of  his  home  in  Mexico,  a  little  of  the 
story  of  his  mixed  parentage:  of  his  Mexican  mother, 
asleep,  he  said,  under  a  great  coverlet  of  gardenias — a 
Mexican  flower;  his  favourite  flower;  rich,  queerly  white, 
and  with  the  lost  perfume  of  Eden,  and  beyond  these 
words,  ineffable  .  .  .  though  he  had  said  so  as  if  striving 
for  more  wherewith  to  describe  them  and  stretch  his  speech 
away  from  the  sacred  name  they  spelled  for  him,  so  that 
there  had  crept  into  her  cheeks  a  colour  of  pink  that  had 
been  both  of  gratitude  that  he  had  mentioned  her  at  all, 
and  of  pain,  and  that  hastily  she  had  hidden  from  him, 
helping  him  on  to  talk  of  the  strange  lovely  flower  and  its 
strange  lovely  scent;  of  his  father,  a  roving  expatriate 
less  of  the  States,  indeed,  for  these  he  had  abandoned 
after  mere  citizenship,  than  of  England,  whence  he  had 
wandered  in  his  youth,  with  the  visionary  programme  of 
the  English  younger  son — to  find,  finally,  silver  and  a 
wife  in  the  second  country  of  his  adoption — childless  till 
late  in  life,  an  old  man,  in  fact,  when  Jose  Luis  was  born, 
and  now — so  sadly,  for  it  was  even  after  the  son's  recent 
parting  from  his  home — "asleep,"  with  the  Mexican 
flowers  and  the  Mexican  Flower  they  covered ;  of  the  boy's 
education,  fashionable  after  a  fashion,  and  the  custom 
that  sent  such  colonial  sons  of  money  to  Paris  and  old 
Spain — always  Paris,  and  old  Spain.  But  in  his  own 
case,  London  too,  for  he  had  been  to  London. 

"But  you  love  best  Nueva  York,  no,  Jose  Luis?" 

"Yes,  I  love  best  Nueva  York." 

"Then  I  love  best  Nueva  York,  too." 

He  thought  and  called  himself  American :  with  a  double, 
possibly  a  conflicting  pride  in  his  assertion  of  attitude 
and  word,  the  pride  of  Mexico  in  her  separation  from 


48  The  Great  Way 

Spain,  though  he  clung,  in  speech,  aristocratically  to  the 
maternal  castellano — aristocratically  as  Dulce;  pride  in 
his  father's  long  naturalizationship  in  the  great  domi- 
nating continental  country  bordering  their  "Alehico" — 
in  which  one  word  he  stepped  definitively  away  from 
Dulce's  madridese  to  little  Lola's  "j"  in  speaking  the  writ- 
ten "x"  which  little  Lola  probably  could  not  write. 

"I  said  always,  'I  shall  live  in  Nueva  York  when  padre 
mio  is  asleep.'  .  .  .  Yet,  Londres  is  nice — much  older, 
nicer  than  Nueva  York.  I  did  not  love  it  till  I  went  there. 
.  .  .  Perhaps  I  love  Londres  best." 

"Then — then  I,  too,  love  Londres  best.  Yes,  I  love 
Londres  best,  too." 

And  he  would  laugh. 

Yet,  it  was  that  same  London  that  she  feared — and  that 
she  both  craved  and  dreaded  for  their  talk.  She  knew 
vaguely  of  a  distant  cousin,  distant  in  blood  as  in  geog- 
raphy, he  had  said,  in  one  of  the  fragments  making  up 
her  vividly  imagination-coloured  little  patchwork  of  data. 
And  her  heart  welled  up  against  her  own  words  that  she, 
too,  loved  London  best;  and  against  that  England  that 
had  taken  Gibraltar,  that  Gibraltar  that  seemed,  some- 
how, to  paint  its  shadow  of  failure  across  the  salt  waters 
all  the  way  up  to  poor  little  Cadiz — yes,  with  England 
sitting  on  it,  cross-legged  like  a  retired  tailor  who  had 
pitched  his  shears  over  into  the  Mediterranean !  .  .  .  Dis- 
tant from  Methico,  yes,  but  did  she  seem  so  distant  to  him 
now,  this  cousin?  Was  she  distant  at  all?  Lola  had  said 
his  friends  were  American,  but  what  did  Lola  know?  To 
Lola,  poor  little  ignorant  thing,  English  and  Americans 
would  be  even  more  alike  than  to  herself!  .  .  .  She  had 
never  disliked  America — even  on  account  of  her  kindless 
war  with  Spain  .  .  .  stupid  as  that  had  been,  and  how 
clever  of  them,  too,  winning  so  quickly,  and  how  generous, 
paying  so  large  a  price  for  Los  Filipinos,  that  had  been 
so  great  a  nuisance  to  dear  Spain  so  long!  While  that 
England,  who  took  everything  .  .  .  !  Ah,  was  she,  per- 
haps, this  cousin,  the  imagined  American  beauty  at  whose 


Traffic  49 

loveliness,  and  at  whose  companion's,  she  had  been  afraid 
to  look — turning  coward  at  the  mere  intuition  of  their 
gold  patricianism? 

"Jose,"  she  said  suddenly  after  a  long  silence  in  which 
they  had  been  gazing  across  to  the  beautiful  remote 
islands,  "having  had  you  in  my  life,  I  think  I  could  now 
die  happy  if  I  could  be  a  lady  once,  only  for  a  night! 
And  for  that  matter  I  could  ape  it,  Jose  Luis,  so  that  no 
lady  ever  born  could  find  the  difference.  Let  me  tell  you 
I  am  cleverer  than  you  know,  my  own.  For  instance,  if 
you  would  take  me  to  see  those  ladies  whom  you  know  at 
the  Continental,  to  a  dinner  or  something,  you  would 
not  be  ashamed  of  me,  I  assure  you !" 

He  smiled,  patting  her  hand. 

.  "Indeed,  it  would  be  feasible,  my  dear!  For  instance, 
you  could  say  that  your  father  had  been  a  friend  of  my 
father,  a  rich  gentleman  who  had  to  go  up  to  Paris  for  a 
week  for  some  transactions  on  the  Bourse,  and  you  having 
come  to  him  with  letters,  and  he  having  no  near  relative 
to  trust,  he  had  left  me  in  your  charge,  asking  you  to 
show  me  some  attentions  in  his  absence.  Could  anything 
be  more  natural — or  refined?" 

Jose  laughed. 

"Ah,  you  may  laugh,  Jose  Luis !  But  I  would  be  in 
earnest  if  you  gave  me  the  least  encouragement.  Do  you 
think  I  cannot  look  and  act  the  lady?" 

Half-smiling,  half-defiant,  she  rose,  and  a  subtly  deli- 
cate change  vaguely  defined  itself  in  her  whole  face  and 
bearing  as  she  began  to  murmur  scarcely  audible  exclama- 
tions at  the  pretty  scenes — turning  this  way  and  that, 
lifting  an  imaginary  lorgnon,  looking  at  Jose  Luis,  look- 
ing through  him.  And  having  moved  languorously  to  the 
balcony  rail,  she  stood  with  one  gloved  hand  upon  it  in  a 
posture  of  complete,  apparently  unconscious  dignity  and 
grace. 

"Was  it  well  done,  my  own?" 

"You  would  be  a  great  actress,  Dulce !" 

"That  is  both  kind  and  unkind,  Jose  Luis !" 


50  The  Great  Way 

"You  know  how  I  intended  it,  Dulce." 

"Yes,  yes.  And  it  is  just  what  I  have  often  said,  for 
that  matter.  Yes,  I  could  be  a  great  actress.  Or  a  great 
anything  else,  I  feel  sometimes.  I  felt  so  when  I  was  for 
three  nights  in  the  chorus  at  the  Alcazar.  And  I  have 

been  feeling  so  again,  since — since She  broke  off 

as  she  herself  blushed ;  and  again  they  were  long  silent. 

"Jose  Luis :  Her  eyes  had  grown  grave  and 

distant,  a  touch  of  mist  in  them. 

"Yes,  Dulce?" 

"I  am  very  thoughtful,  for  all  my  chatter  and — and 
happiness.  Tell  me  something,  Jose  Luis.  What  is  this 
thing  that — that  I  have  been?  What  is  this  wickedness 
that  I  have  done?  That  is  my  trouble — although  I  say 
far  too  many,  and  make  up  a  lot,  I  do  not  know  enough 
words.  I  am  trying  to  find  out  words  for  the  wickedness 
of  the  Trudge  Market,  Jose  Luis." 

His  handsome  face  grew  almost  boyish  in  its  troubled 
thoughtfulness. 

"  'Traffic'  is  a  word,  I  suppose,  if  you  can  understand 
it,  Dulce." 

"  'Traffic,'  yes.  I  can  understand  that.  But  in  what? 
That  is  not  fully  it,  Jose  Luis." 

His  voice  was  quite  low  as  after  a  hesitant  pause  he 
answered:  "I  suppose  it  is  traffic  in  God,  Dulce." 

"Ah!"  she  cried,  circling  his  arm  in  her  hands  with  a 
little  shiver.  "  'Traffic  in  God' !  What  terrible  words, 
Jose  Luis!  Now  it  is  my  turn  to  say,  what  terrible 
words !" 


CHAPTER  VH 

THE    TIME    GOD    TOOK 

IN  his  long  absences,  at  first  full  of  happy  wonder  for 
her,  wonder  that  gave  her  bliss-filled  solitudes,  she 
dreamed,  laughed,  sang,  sewed,  renewed  and  re-renewed 
the  room,  shifting  its  furniture,  changing  its  colours,  its 
flowers,  its  perfumes.  By  now,  her  habit  of  speech  had  so 
grown  upon  her  that  she  talked  to  him  whether  he  was 
there  or  not. 

"My  own,  do  you  like  that?  Yes,  you  do,  my  silent 
one.  So  why  not  say  so?  Because  perhaps  you  are 
talking  to  someone  else,  on  whose  soul  may  purgatory 
sit  forever  like  a  hen  on  a  china  egg.  Come  soon,  my 
own !" 

And  again :  "  'My  own  .  .  .  my  own !'  What  an 
expression  it  is!  ...  I  wish  I  had  ten  small  my  owns — 
and  that  you  had  ten,  Jose,  making  I  suppose  twenty  my 
owns — only  I  never  could  do  any  sum  except  subtraction ! 
I  do  not  wish  it  really,  I  would  be  so  ugly,  but  I  would 
so  like  to  name  ten  Methico  and  Nueva  York  and 
Gardenia  and  Royala  and  Vera  Cruz  and  Silver  Mine, 
and  the  other  ten  Re-hee-nald  and  Pair-thee-val  and  Ruby 
and  Vi-i-olet  and  Day-zee  and  Zo-ee.  And  one,  the  most 
darling  of  all  our  my  owns,  if  she  was  very,  very  homely 
I  would  name  Gwen-do-1,  y,  n,  lean,  Gwendolean ;  and 
if  she  was  very,  very  beautiful,  like  you  and  me,  I  would 
name  her  Ja-a-ane!  Would  not  that  be  clever?" 

And  she  became  so  fond  of  this  thought  that  she  began 
talking  also  to  Jane  and  Gwendolyn,  and  even  mentioned 
her  to  Jose  Luis  when  he  was  really  there. 

"It  rained  while  you  were  out — a  long  Gwendolean 

51 


52  The  Great  Way 

morning,  my  own !  But  now  the  sun  is  out,  instead  of 
you !  Only  look — what  a  Jane  afternoon !" 

And  she  named  the  sharply-cut  sun  and  shadow  halves 
of  the  bull-ring  Jane  and  Gwendolyn. 

When  the  hours  turned  more  than  usually  idle,  and 
idleness  itself  grew  unamusing,  she  would  herself  wander 
forth.  To-day  she  had  gone  down  to  the  statue  of  Colon 
at  the  foot  of  the  Ramblas,  wound  around  past  the  coal- 
yards,  and  climbed  Mont  Juich,  whereon,  outside  the 
fortress,  she  had  told  a  sympathetic  sentry  a  long  ram- 
bling story  about  her  happiness. 

"He  is  twice  as  tall  as  you,  amigo !  If  we  ever  go  to 
war  with  Methico,  you  will  all  be  killed — you,  and  all  your 
friends !  Think  of  that !" 

On  passing  into  the  Flores  she  had  been  glad — for  her 
own  sake  but  for  her  little  friend's  too — that  Lola  was 
not  there. 

"Poor  little  thing!  I  hope  she  is  having  lunch  to-day, 
as  well  as  some  supper  to  look  to !  And  I  hope  she  and 
Jaime  will  keep  their  vow  to  me  and  get  married.  They 
promised  they  would  if  anything  should  happen.  Well, 
much  has  happened — and  nothing  could  be  more  sensible!" 

On  her  journey  back,  down  the  mountain,  she  had 
stopped  at  the  Casa  Blanca,  a  pretty  grape-vined  inn  by 
the  descending  wayside,  irrelevantly  christened  white  with 
its  four  walls  plastered  as  pink  as  a  string  of  corals, 
and  had  drunk  their  health — and  then  Jose's — in  deep 
draughts  of  vermouth,  gazing  off  over  the  still  blue  waters 
of  the  Mediterranean  as  the  high  sun  fell  slowly  lower, 
and  marvelling,  in  a  sporadic  mood  of  curious  thought- 
fulness,  at  the  comparable  sweep  of  her  new  own 
existence. 

"I  ...  as  pure  and  worthy  of  heaven  as  a  married 
woman  for  a  whole  week !  Maria,  God  and  all  angels  bless 
thee  for  picking  up  this  miracle  out  of  a  nasty  street- 
brawl  !  And  this  is  I  .  .  .  Dulce.  .  .  .  This  thing,  all  in 
the  space  of  seven  days!  Well,  when  you  stop  to  think 
of  it,  my  own,  that  is  the  time  God  took  to  make  the 


The  Time  God  Took  53 

world.  .  .  .  No,  more  than  that  time  after  all,  when  you 
really  think  of  it,  for  He  made  it — actually — in  six,  and 
then  rested.  .  .  .  And  there,  in  the  end,  my  own  case 
does  fit,  precisely,  for  so  have  I!  ...  Ah,  what  divine 
rest  there  is  in  love !  .  .  .  And  He  might  wranake  it,  too, 
for  that  matter.  .  .  .  Though  I  do  not  believe  He  could, 
now  the  thing  is  whizzing!  It  always  takes  longer  to 
undo  a  thing  you  have  done.  ...  If  you  can  undo  it 
at  alir*" 

Then  she  meandered  on  down  the  mountain-side,  steal- 
ing occasional  figs  from  over  the  low  stone  wall  for  the 
joy  of  the  crimes,  and  in  repayment,  at  scrupulous 
twinges  of  her  conscience,  dropping  small  unexpected 
coins  at  the  diminutive  sordid  huts  of  the  garden  owners 
as  she  passed. 

•  She  walked  so  slowly  downward  that  the  pasear  of  the 
officers  and  their  families  overtook  her  when  the  fortress 
yard  was  closed  at  five  o'clock,  and  at  the  base  labourers 
were  going  already  homeward  from  the  coal-yards.  She 
shuddered  at  the  thought  of  meeting  Jaime,  and  hastened 
a  little. 

Farther  on,  she  breathed  easily  again ;  and  she  began 
striving,  suddenly,  to  analyze  a  new,  strange  feeling  that 
she  had  when  out-of-doors.  .  .  .  Stumbling  suddenly 
upon  its  secret,  she  blushed  furiously.  It  was  the  queer 
comfort  of  walking  without  looks  from  side  to  side  .  .  . 
of  walking,  walking  without  need  or  purpose  .  .  .  with- 
out glancing  to  the  right  or  to  the  left.  .  .  . 

Would  he  be  at  home,  perhaps  ?  It  would  be  happiness 
unutterable  to  come  in  upon  him  there,  without  having 
to  wait,  listening.  It  was  still  early,  though  later  than 
he  had  as  yet  come  home.  She  humoured  her  desire,  and 
turned  her  steps  into  the  long  way  about,  through  the 
wide  boulevard  out  to  the  New  Arena,  and  back  into  the 
heart  of  the  city  by  way  of  the  long  tree-lined  Gran 
Via*  The  slow  creep  of  coming  darkness  jumped  forward 
with  a  sudden  bound.  Lights  came  from  the  wine  shops. 
A  star  shone  out  over  the  blackened  fortress.  ^Tingling 


54  The  Great  Way 

with  the  glow  of  excitement  in  her  small  adventure  she 
went  on  and  on — and  on — as  she  had  so  many  endless 
times  gone  on  and  on,  yet  with  this  exquisite  miracle  of 
difference  that  lit  her  heart,  lit  the  Gran  Via — on  past 
the  dark  Arena,  on  and  on.  .  .  . 

Soft  candle-light  gleamed  from  under  the  door  and  the 
lit  heart  bounded  with  rapture. 

"My  own!  My  own!  You  are  here!  Was  it  long? 
Was  it  long?" 

"But  a  little  while,  Dulce." 

He  was  standing  at  the  window,  an  elbow  propped 
beside  the  mignonettes.  He  reached  out  his  other  hand 
to  her,  and  as  she  took  it  in  both  of  hers  she  saw  that  he 
was  in  evening  dress,  as  on  that  night  seven  days — so 
very  long — ago. 

Quick,  grateful  tears  jumped  into  her  eyes. 

"Well,  well,  my  own,  the  supper  will  be  worth  it !" 

"To-night,  I  am  going  out  to  dinner,  Dulce." 

She  dropped  his  hand  as  if  it  had  suddenly  burned  her. 
For  a  moment,  the  little  tragedy  overwhelmed  her.  But 
she  caught  herself,  driving  her  nails  into  her  palms,  and 
when  she  spoke  her  voice  was  very  steady. 

"Very  well,  dear.  I  would  be  wrong  to  ask  otherwise. 
By  myself,  I  will  drink  your  health.  You  know  that." 

He  patted  her  hand,  then,  as  when  she  had  found  him, 
gazed  out  of  window. 

She  stirred  about,  setting  the  table  with  food  and  wine. 
Her  quick  occasional  glances  discovered  him  thought- 
ful, preoccupied.  At  last  she  sat  down  on  the  bed. 

"Jose  Luis,  only  what  you  give  me  can  be  mine.  Six 
days  ago  I  said  to  you:  'I  will  ask  nothing,  or  if  I  ask, 
answer  so  little  as  you  choose.  In  a  few  short  hours,  you 
have  given  me  happiness  to  fill  a  lifetime.  You  know  what 
I  have  been.  You  can  owe  me  nothing.'  All  that  I  said, 
and  by  all  that  I  will  abide.  But  I  am  going  to  tell  you 
this  about  myself,  my  caballero.  Why  at  this  time,  I  do 
not  know,  except  that  I  feel  all  at  once  very  lonely  and 
frightened.  Will  you  look  me  in  the  eyes,  Jose  Luis,  as 


The  Time  God  Took  55 

on  that  night  a  week  ago,  when  I  first  asked  you  to? 
Thank  you,  my  own !  It  is  this,  Caballero :  What  I  have 
been,  through  you  /  am  not.  And  I  never  will  be  again. 
Never.  After  you  leave  me,  if  I  should  live  through  that, 
then  never,  never,  never  again.  I  have  taken  that  vow. 
And  I  will  keep  it.  I  have  wished  for  you  to  know  that, 
Jose  Luis." 

His  eyes  faltered  before  hers  and  they  looked  away 
from  each  other. 

"I — -I  am  going  to  ask  you  something,  Jose  Luis.  I 
remember  what  I  said.  Answer  me  or  not,  as  you  choose. 
The  ladies  who  drove  by  the  Royal  that  night — you  dine 
with  them?" 

"Yes,  Dulce." 

"The  young  one,  you  have  told  me,  is  pretty.  Your 
father  was  almost  American,  Jose  Luis.  Do  you  like 
American  good-looks?" 

"Sometimes,  Dulce." 

After  a  long  silence  she  slipped  from  the  bed,  and  hav- 
ing gone  across  to  him,  spoke  over  his  shoulder.  Her 
voice  had  an  unaccustomed  sound — a  strained  new  effort 
in  it. 

"Jose  Luis — my — my  own,  once  more,  answer  me  or 
not,  as  you  choose.  Only,  be  kind  now  instead  of  later. 
Do  you  marry  her,  Jose  Luis?" 

"Possibly,  Dulce." 

He  did  not  turn,  and  for  a  long  time  she  stood  silent 
behind  him,  steadying  her  body  and  her  voice. 

"You  are  going  to  England.  But  on  the  way,  when 
you  should  leave  here,  you  were  to  go  to  Paris.  When 
do  you  go  to  Paris,  Jose  Luis?" 

"To-morrow,  Dulce." 


CHAPTER  VIII 
"HER  STEPS  TAKE  HOLD  ON  HELL" 

THE  clock  ticked  between  them  in  the  quiet  room,  only 
its  maddening  click,  click  answering  her  low  moaning, 
which  came,  like  the  reflex  of  a  twitching  nerve,  less  and 
less  often  from  the  bed. 

At  last,  with  desperate  hands  wiping  an  imaginary 
weight  from  his  temples,  he  rose  and  stood  over  her. 

"Dulce,  you  will  forget  me  presently.  Sooner,  I  think, 
than  I  will  forget  you." 

"Damn  you,  may  you  burn  in  hell  for  that !" 

They  were  her  first  words,  and  she  flashed  upright  with 
them,  her  nails  biting  the  bedclothes,  her  face  blazing  at 
him  from  where  she  sat  with  her  knees  touching  his. 

"Dutce!" 

"I  mean  it !  There  is  a  case  for  my  right,  and  I  mean 
it!  Shall  I  sit  here  like  a  speechless  animal  and  let  you 
stamp  with  such  words  on  such  a  love  as  the  Virgin  never 
let  live  before  while  I  have  lungs  to  scream  with  that 
you  lie?" 

"Dulce,"  he  cried,  his  hands  at  his  temples  again,  "you 
make  me  feel  like  a  coward,  a  criminal,  a  beast !" 

"Saint  or  man  or  beast,  you  are  what  my  soul  eats 
and  drinks !"  She  pushed  him  away,  sweeping  him  so 
roughly  with  her  hands  that  he  fell  more  than  sank  upon  a 
chair,  and  clenching  tight  her  fingers,  like  a  thing  in  a 
cage  she  paced  through  and  through  the  room. 

"For  the  love  of  Christ,  feed  me  a  little  longer!  You 
are  rich  and  idle,  you  have  no  work  to  do,  you  have  no 
family  here  to  hurt  or  shame.  Unless,  indeed,  that  woman 
M  your  cousin!  Oh,  you  need  not  start,  with  either  sur- 

56 


"Her  Steps  Take  Hold  on  Heir         57 

prise  or  anger,  for  I  have  put  two  and  two  together — 
making  one!  And  if  she  is  not,  they  must,  in  truth,  be 
American  savages,  deserving  no  fine  points  of  etiquettes 
or  would  they  travel  with  you?  For  you  need  not  tell  me 
they  go  with  you  to  Paris — I  know  it !  Would  any 
Spanish — lady?  But  I — I  ask  nothing!  I  do  not  wish 
to  know!  And  if  I  did  I  would  not  ask!  7  stay,  you 
see,  within  my  boundary,  even  as  you  knife  me!  A 
Spanish  woman  stays  where  she  belongs !  Oh,  Jose,  Jose, 
lie  to  those  women,  lie  to  them !  You  have  lied  to  them 
already — lie  again !  You  admitted  to  me  you  were  afraid 
they  might  hear  of  your  being  with  someone  at  the  bull- 
fight, which  they  were  too  nice  to  go  to — the  only  reason 
you  ever  took  me! — so  you  told  them  of  it.  What  did 
you  say  to  them  of  that?  Tell  me  what  you  said  to  them ! 
It  concerns  me  and  I  have  a  right  to  ask !" 

"Something,  Dulce,  such  as  you  suggested  to  me  the 
other  day.  That  your  father  was  a  friend  of  my  father. 
That  he  asked  me  to  attend  you  while  he  was  away." 

"Tell  them  that  again !  Say  you  must  stay  here  for 
a  few  days  yet!  Jose,  Jose!  My  life  goes  with  you  on 
that  train  to  Paris !" 

"Dulce,  I  must  not !  Even  if  I  could,  it  would  be 
wrong.  You " 

"Wrong?  Dio  mio,  I  could  put  back  my  head  and 
laugh  at  that!" 

"I  know,  Dulce,  I  know!  Only  your  nature  and  your 
sweetness  to  me  keep  you  from  saying,  'Why  not  right 
and  wrong  a  week  ago?'  But  I,  too,  have  learned  some- 
thing in  a  week.  Dulce,  let  me  tell  you,  if  I  can,  what 
I  have  learned  to  feel.  You  have  said  yourself,  plain 
speech  is  only  right  between  you  and  me.  Try  to  under- 
stand— as  you  have  asked  of  me.  Dulce,  'this  thing  you 
are,'  as  you  yourself  have  called  it " 

She  halted  her  mad  pacing  for  an  instant. 

"  'Are'?  How  dare  you?  Am  I  a  liar  with  the  rest 
of  it?" 

He  flushed  crimson. 


58  The  Great  Way 

"Dulce,  this  thing  you  were — that,  poor  little  girl,  you 
do  not  understand.  It " 

"I  do  understand!"  She  flung  it  back  at  him  across 
her  shoulder,  for  she  was  tramping  again,  with  desperate 
eyes  that  did  not  look  at  him. 

"I  do  not  think  you  do.  There  is  a  thing,  Dulce, 
called  'Society.'  Heaven  knows  my  part  in  it  has  been 
poorly  borne.  A  man's  usually  is,  I  suppose,  compared 
with  a  woman's — in — things  like  this.  I  suppose  that  is 
why  there  is  such  a  thing  as  'what  you — were.'  But  while 
such  things  must  be — or  are — Dulce,  they  should  have 
nothing  to  do  with  such — such  love  as  you  show  for  me. 
It  is  too — too  terrible,  Dulce!" 

Once  more  her  voice  flew  at  him  over  her  shoulder, 
stinging. 

"So  it  is  your  turn  at  'terrible'  again,  is  it?  Well, 
have  you  finished,  priest?" 

"Dulce !"  he  pleaded.     "Dulce !" 

"For  if  you  have,  I  have  this  much  to  say:  I  know  all 
that  you  have  just  read  out,  and  more." 

"Then,  am  I  not  right,  Dulce?" 

"No !"  She  turned,  the  word  a  shout,  the  hungry  eyes 
blazing,  her  whole  face  quivering.  He  drew  back  further 
on  his  chair,  involuntarily,  as  beneath  a  blow,  and  from 
the  surge  and  beat  of  her  prowling  passion  that  had  grown 
to  a  thudding  pound  upon  his  senses,  he  was  freed  only 
to  pale  under  the  words  that  came  first  bitten  from  her 
lips,  then  thrown  forth  in  a  scattering  torrent. 

"Right?  Holy  God!  Right?  The  very  Virgin  you 
think  of  is  laughing  at  you!  If  anything  in  God's 
universe  can  wipe  out  and  do  away,  like  a  dry  rag  does 
spilt  water,  that  thing  is  such  a  love — such  a  love  as  my 
love,  do  you  hear,  you  who  talk  right  and  wrong?  I 
knew  my  happiness  must  end.  I  knew  I  was  only  one 
kind  of  thing  in  what  you  call  Society,  I  knew,  as  soon  as 
I  could  think  at  all  after  I  met  you  and  loved  you,  that 
I  had  been  something  worse  than  I  had  ever  dreamed  I 
was,  I  knew  that  if  I  chose  to  be  worthy  of  that  love  and 


"Her  Steps  Take  Hold  on  Heir         59 

true  to  it,  which  I  swore  and  swear  still  I  will  be  for  ever 
and  ever,  I  must  not  only  be  decent  after  you  left  me, 
but  that  I  must  try  to  pay  back  into  that  immaculate 
'Society'  for  what  I  had  done  and  done  that  was  mdecent. 
How,  God  knows,  but  I  knew  that  I  must,  or  else  go 
down  into  the  gutter  again  a  thousand  times  deeper  as 
to  my  soul  than  before  because  I  would  know  what  I  was 
doing.  Yet  with  all  that  new  understanding,  which  I 
suppose  God  expects  me  to  thank  Him  for,  I  could  not 
know  that  you  would  leave  me  in  a  week !  I  thought  I 
could  pile,  and  stack,  and  stack  up  my  happiness  till  I 
had  enough  to  see  me  through  when  the  death-bell  rang! 
But  now -" 

She  paced  again,  her  clenched  hands  striking  at  her 
sides  and  at  his  brain. 

"Did  you  think  of  my  side  when  you  said  'Society'? 
Do  you  know  what  it  means  to  walk,  and  walk,  and  walk 
to  earn  your  bread  as  I  earned  mine?  Can  you  think 
what  it  will  mean  to  give  up  that  hellish  trudge,  trudge, 
trudge,  to  earn  it  some  other  way?  Trudge  yourself  for 
a  while,  and  when  you  meet  God,  see  if  you  want  Him 
to  leave  you !" 

"Dulce !"  his  voice  begged  her.     "Dulce !" 

"Oh,"  she  laughed,  "only  a  fool  would  ask  a  man  to 
think!  He  comes  to  market,  and  pays,  and  goes,  and 
is  done  with  it.  And  if  you  give  him  more  than  he 
bargained  for,  is  he  grateful?  No!  He  thinks  only  of 
the  embarrassment  of  his  riches !  7  know  how  a  man's 
mind  works !  You  helped  to  teach  me !  'Dulce,  you 
make  me  feel  a  beast,  a  coward!'  Did  I  call  you  so? 
In  your  memory  you  will  put  the  words  in  my  mouth, 
you  will  think  I  said  them.  You  blame  me  even  for  your 
own  emotions !  So  God  knows  I  can  scarcely  expect  you 
to  let  me  have  any !  But  who  made  them  grow  to  the 
size  they  are?  I  will  not  say  you  roused  them — you 
could  not  help  that.  But  knowing  them,  you  fed  them! 
Why  did  you  stay?  I  told  you  to  go — I  told  you  how  I 
felt!  You  said  you  wanted  to  stay!  Moreover,  it  was 


60  The  Great  Way 

no  market  matter,  you  with  your  piled-up  basket  on  your 
arm!  No  money  soiled  it!  You  respected  that  decency 
— you  did  not  offer  me  any.  You  knew  that  I  would  strike 
you  if  you  did!" 

She  stood  suddenly  over  him  with  one  clenched  shaking 
hand  upraised. 

"Were  you  going  to?  Were  you  going  to  before  you 
left?  Shall  I  strike  you  now?'* 

"Dulce!  Dulce!"  his  voice  again  besought  her.  "All 
that  you  say  is  right,  horribly  right!  It  is  what  I  tried 
to  make  you  understand!  I  am  going  so  that  I  shall 
do  you  no  more  harm!  I  have  been  wrong  from  the  be- 
ginning, quite,  quite  wrong!" 

"Oh,  priest,  priest!"  she  cried,  and  again  her  animal 
tread  thumped  through  the  room.  "Have  you  no  words 
to  your  name  but  right  and  wrong?  Be  a  man,  Jose! 
Be  at  least  a  man,  and  make  a  man's  answer — that 
boughten  women  must  pay  in  some  coin  or  other!  They 
must,  but  is  it  fair,  is  it  fair  when  women  are  not  born 
equal,  when  some  are  born  free  and  some  are  not?  What 
chance  have  /  had,  tell  me  that?  Perhaps  over  in  your 
strange  America  girls  can  stay  good,  poor  or  not,  and 
stay  out  of  the  convents  into  the  bargain.  But  here, 
what  chance  was  there  for  a  girl  like  me?  My  God  but 
we  were  poor,  I  tell  you,  and  my  mother  and  father  were 
good,  and  proud  too — and  at  my  expense,  for  God  in 
His  goodness  to  me  saw  fit  to  make  me  not  only  a  girl, 
but  a  girl  with  an  elder  sister.  Do  you  have  our  customs 
in  Methico,  or  are  you  too  near  to  the  free  States?  With 
all  the  money  gone  to  marry  my  sister,  for  me,  let  me  tell 
you,  it  was  dry  up  in  a  convent  or  stay  alive  in  the  streets, 
and  even  now  I  would  not  choose  the  other  if  I  could  start 
again!  In  a  convent,  could  I  have  loved  you — or  any- 
one? A  priest  perhaps,  and  a  hypocrite  in  a  smeared 
white  robe  I  would  never  be!  So  soon  as  now,  I  tell  you 
I  would  have  been  a  snarling,  bitter  thing,  crossing  myself 
at  Protestants  and  hating  myself  and  the  God  whose 
uniform  I  wore.  ,  .  And  what  has  the  other  Gran  Via 


"Her  Steps  Take  Hold  on  Hell"         61 

been,  tell  me  that?  Or  shall  I  tell  you?  You  do  not 
know !  How  could  you  know  the  chewing  agony  of  walk- 
ing, walking,  walking,  day  and  night,  for  bread  that  was 
hacked  off  my  body  ?  Trudge,  trudge,  trudge — holy  God, 
the  hundreds  of  miles  that  I  have  trudged!  And  what 
do  I  face  now  when  you  shall  go,  denying  me  the  short 
little  joy  that  you  could  give  me?  Do  you  know?  Have 
you  ever  thought?  Women  are  not  quite  the  same  as 
men,  remember!  Have  you  thought  of  the  habitual  need 
created  in  this  stalking  corpse  of  mine  that  I  am  going 
to  deny  from  the  moment  you  go  because  you  came  into 
my  life  and  purified  me?  Look  at  that  need  and  think  of 
it !  Look  at  the  torture,  while  she  hunts  other  work,  of 
the  woman  who  has  given  herself,  again  and  again  and 
again  and  again  and  again,  without  her  soul's  sanction 
— given  and  given  and  given  her  body,  with  a  laugh  per- 
haps, never  with  love  or  a  tear!" 

She  stopped  before  him,  dry-eyed,  ravenous. 

"Think  of  that,  you  who  cast  me  out  so  hideously 
soon,  and  stay  a  little  longer!  Think  of  all  that,  think  of 
my  vow,  think  of  the  love  you  taught  me,  think  of  the 
market  where  I  have  spent  my  life,  think  of  the  men, 
like  you,  who  have  come  to  buy,  think  of  the  thing  the 
transactions  built  me  into,  think  of  the  teeth  I  must  grit 
to  be  anything  else,  think  of  the  weeks  of  work  instead 
of  walk,  of  the  years  on  end  of  scrub  instead  of  trudge, 
think  of  my  sunlight  when  you  let  me  think  you  cared, 
think  of  my  nightmare  when  I  see  you  go,  and  stay  with 
me  a  little  while,  my  own — my  own,  my  life,  my  saint, 
my  vision  of  God — a  little  while,  a  little,  little  while !" 

The  taut  wire  of  her  rigid  body  gave  way  and  she  fell 
between  his  knees,  sinking  her  head  on  arms  that  clutched 
his  coat. 

His  face  was  very  white,  his  voice  unsteady. 

"Dulce,  my  sweet,  I  must  go  to-morrow !" 

"Dio,  Dio !"  she  sobbed,  tears  aiding  her  at  last. 
"But" — and  she  looked  up  at  him  with  imploring  face — 


62  The  Great  Way 

"you  will  come  back  to-night?  You  intend  that,  Jose 
Luis?  Swear  to  me — swear  to  me!" 

"I  swear  that  I  intend  to  come  to-night!" 

"You  wiU  come,  in  the  name  of  God?" 

"I  witt  come." 

"Thank  God  for  so  much!"  She  sat  back  from  him, 
propped  by  her  hands  on  the  floor,  her  eyes  closed. 
"Thank  God!  Thank  God!" 

She  repeated  it  over  and  over,  not  opening  her  eyes 
as  he  kissed  her  swiftly,  or  as  he  left  the  room. 


CHAPTER  IX 

INMACULADA   NOCHE 

SHE  forced  herself  to  eat  and  drink.  She  trembled  from 
the  quantity  of  wine,  for  the  food  repelled  her  and  she 
swallowed  little  of  it.  The  time  stretched  frighteningly 
long  before  her  and  she  protracted  the  task  of  clearing 
the  hated  meal  away.  This  done,  a  slowly  formulating 
thought  crystallized  itself  in  her  mind  and  she  set  slowly, 
deliberately  about  another  task.  Bit  by  bit  she  cleaned 
the  room,  dusting,  sweeping,  washing  as  though  she  were 
a  drudge  in  a  lodgings,  dependent  for  her  pennies  on  the 
speckless  result  of  her  labour.  She  polished  the  windows 
and  her  candlesticks  of  silver — these  her  one  rich  goods, 
other  than  her  Manila  shawls — and  the  cheaper  silver  of 
her  dressing-table.  All  trace  of  food  and  wine  she  swept 
away.  She  watered  her  plants  of  mignonette  and  washed 
their  little  leaves,  and  later  set  the  pots  about  the  room, 
fetching  out  the  tender  colours  of  the  blooms  with  near-by 
candles. 

Then  she  pulled  forth  her  wooden  chest  and  brought 
its  myriad  hues  upon  the  middle  of  the  floor,  a  riotous 
pile  in  the  soft  flickering  light. 

The  mantones  de  Manila,  huge  shawls  wherein  the 
traditions  of  Spain  and  the  Orient  became  one  warp  and 
woof  of  glowing  tones,  she  disposed  about  to  the  full 
worth  and  show  of  their  lustre;  one  upon  the  bed, 
another  drooping  richly  from  its  foot;  two  more  upon 
two  chairs;  a  fifth,  white  superimposed  with  embroidered 
roses  of  magenta  and  cerise  and  leaves  of  flaring  greens, 
upon  the  floor,  that  his  feet  might  tread  upon  it.  One, 
her  last,  she  left  aside.  A  mass  of  lace  and  ribbons  re- 

63 


64  The  Great  Way 

mained  half  in,  half  out,  the  box.  .  .  .  Thanks  to  God, 
time  had  gone  more  swiftly  than  she  had  hoped. 

Slowly,  very  slowly,  she  undressed,  standing  at  last 
among  her  discarded  garments  and  the  scattered  spoil  of 
lace  and  ribbons  like  some  fair  white  great-eyed  goddess 
trapped  in  some  human  maze  and  doubtful  of  her  beauty 
amid  earthly  accoutrements,  hungrily  searching  for  it  in 
that  faulty  glass  above  the  dressing-table.  .  .  . 

Kneeling,  from  behind  the  small  white  curtains  of  this 
equipage  she  drew  out  fresh  linens,  and  redressed. 
Little  by  little  she  made  her  toilet  like  some  unassisted 
royalty,  hunting  through  the  box  for  things  undonned  the 
whole  long  week,  and  standing  finally  before  the  glass  for 
the  dozenth  time  as  she  knotted  a  rich  crimson  sash 
below  her  waist  like  a  queen  of  gypsies.  Her  dark  soft 
hair  was  newly  dressed ;  she  perfumed  but  did  not  adorn 
it.  "Strange  man!  Strange  man!"  she  thought,  for  he 
had  praised  that  scent.  "I  never  cared  for  it — how  I 
love  it  now!"  She  took  more  wine,  and  in  the  glow  of 
it,  with  a  thrill  of  sudden  desperate  gladness  she  hummed 
to  herself  the  refrain  of  the  fatal  Apache  waltz,  as  she 
wound  more  and  more  ribbons,  yellow,  blue,  red,  green, 
into  her  gitana's  dress.  Finally  she  put  the  box  away, 
pushing  it  far  under  the  bed  to  hide  its  harshness  from 
the  beautifully  coloured  room,  and  reserving  three  things 
from  it ;  her  tamboril — one  whose  tinkle  sounded  the  true 
silver  praises  of  the  great  seat  of  tambourines,  Cadiz ;  her 
red-and-yellow-tasseled  castanuelas,  a  precious  pair, 
exquisitely  toned,  from  Sevilla;  and  her  dancing-slippers 
— small,  gold-coloured,  sole  souvenir  of  her  brief  starva- 
tion in  costly,  regal  Madrid.  .  .  .  All  these  she  flung 
upon  the  bed,  and  the  last  manton  she  flung  upon  herself 
— with  prelude  of  that  initial  toss  and  swirl  from  which 
the  fabric  settles,  deftly  urged  with  fingers  and  elbows, 
into  its  final  droop  of  utter  grace. 

"Sevilla !  He  has  been  never  in  Sevilla !  He  does 
not  know  the  dancing  girls  there !  Dio  mio !" 

She  tossed  her  slippers  back  to  the  floor,  stepped  into 


Inmaculada  Noche  65 

them,  took  still  more  wine,  a  last  hungry  glance  in  her 
mirror.  The  unrouged  cheeks  had  begun  to  glow  a  little ; 
and  she  sat  down  to  wait. 

It  was  quite  late  already.  She  was  passionately  re- 
gretful, yet  thankfully  glad,  that  she  had  not  asked  his 
hour.  The  agonizing  distrust  of  love  told  her  that  he 
would  have  been  in  any  case  beyond  it.  It  was  well  not 
to  have  asked. 

An  hour  passed.  It  was  late,  late.  With  a  sudden 
glad  throb  she  remembered  that  the  Opera  came  to-night, 
opening  the  Liceo.  Perhaps — more  than  perhaps — they 
were  at  the  Opera — Traviata.  To  keep  her  spirits  patient 
she  hummed  the  thrilling,  joyous  aria.  .  .  .  "Ah!  Fors 
e  lui  ..."...  "Holy  God,  how  I  could  sing  that  if  I 
had  a  chance !"  And  she  did  sing  it  a  little,  there  and 
then,  running  through  it  with  now  a  few  of  the  words, 
and  to  these — to  one  of  them — with  a  sudden  new  thought 
arbitrarily  adding  a  letter,  so  turning  the  simple  Italian 
word  to  a  Spanish  one  dearer  to  her  at  this  curious  little 
instant  than  any  other  in  the  whole  of  espanol,  and  Cata- 
lan, and  castellano :  "Ah !  Fors  e  Luis  !  .  .  . " 

Another  hour.  He  must  have  gone  to  the  Opera. 
And  now,  she  could  hear  the  carriages  dispersing  by  in 
the  Rambla.  He  must  come  soon — for  they  stopped  but 
a  step  away,  those  women,  at  the  Continental.  .  .  .  With 
the  lonely  sound  of  the  rolling  carriage-wheels  her  misery, 
struggle  with  it  as  she  would,  rose  up  once  more. 

Seven  short  days !  .  .  .  Well,  the  Campanile  had  fallen 
in  seven  seconds,  probably.  .  .  .  And  anyway,  would 
have  done,  in  six,  if  God  had  chosen  that  He,  and  not  the 
world  He  had  made,  should  rest  that  seventh  second! 
Yes,  on  a  fourteenth  of  July.  .  .  .  She  remembered  the 
date,  somehow,  though  without  a  year  to  it — perhaps  be- 
cause it  was  Bastille  Day,  for  the  Bastille,  though  in  an- 
other century,  had  fallen  on  July  the  fourteenth,  as  ugly 
a  thing  as  the  Campanile  was  beautiful.  So  beautiful 
and  ugly  things  alike  must  fall.  .  .  .  Possibly  the  Pyra- 
mids would  fall  some  day.  ...  So  why  should  people 


66  The  Great  Way 

build  Pyramids  ?  Seven  short  days !  Seven  short  days 
from  the  date  when  Ferrer  was  shot — shot  blindfold,  too, 
like  Mario  on  the  parapet  in  La  Tosca.  .  .  .  How  daringly 
she  had  said:  "It  always  takes  longer  to  undo  a  thing," 
as  if  God  Himself  had  been  a  mere  builder  of  Pyramids! 
In  but  one  day  longer  than  He  had  taken  to  make  it, 
God  had  unmade  the  whole  world!  .  .  .  Ah,  does  God 
never  rest — again? 

A  footfall  sounded  in  the  corridor  and  stifling  a  mad 
cry  she  sprang  up  and  seized  the  tambourine  from  the 
bed.  As  she  ran  to  the  middle  of  the  room  the  candle- 
flames  flickered  on  her  gypsy  costume,  kindling  its  gay 
colours  to  iridescent  fire,  and  lighting  the  deep  tones  of 
the  heavy  mantle  to  a  splendid  glow  of  black  and  gold 
and  Chinese  reds  and  strange  dull  yellows  as  she  lifted 
the  tambourine  and  struck  her  left  hand  upon  her  hip. 

"Come  in,  come  in,  mi  Caballero !" 

The  door  opened  and  a  small  boy,  "clean-boots"  of 
the  Continental,  stood  blinking  at  her,  an  envelope  in  his 
hand. 

She  took  it  in  silence,  in  nerveless  fingers  that  nearly 
let  it  flutter  to  the  floor.  The  little  "clean-boots"  went 
away,  closing  the  door  behind  him.  She  was  alone  again, 
staring  blindly  before  her. 

MY  DULCE, — It  is  better  this  way.  Better  for  both  you  and 
me.  Believe  that,  and  forgive  me.  I  could  not  bear  it,  neither 
could  you.  Without  intending  it  I  have  done  you  a  great 
wrong.  Forgive  me.  JOSE  Luis. 

For  a  few  moments  she  stood  in  the  soft  light  among  the 
wonderful  colours.  Then  God  seemed  to  be  mercifully 
shutting  them  away,  in  a  vague  whirl  like  a  spinning 
prism,  and  she  crashed  down  and  was  motionless  across 
the  white  silken  manton  de  Manila  that  she  had  spread 
for  his  feet. 


BOOK  n 

THE  VOICE  OUT  OF  THE   WILDERNESS 
CHAPTER  X 

THE   DEVOURERS 

DAWN  was  upon  the  Mediterranean.  It  had  finished  its 
slow  crawl  out  of  the  Orient,  and  was  about  to  walk,  like 
Christ,  across  the  sea. 

But  Mataro  lay  in  dense  darkness  still. 

Mataro,  as  far  as  words  mean  anything,  is  a  town. 
But  in  reality,  she  is  nothing  but  a  dirty  old  woman, 
straggling  down  a  hillside  with  her  feet  in  the  water.  Her 
ribs  are  wide  stairs  of  crumbling  stone,  protruding 
through  her  skin  of  yellow  dirt  and  leading  up  across  her 
heart  to  her  shoulders  on  the  hill.  And  two  streets,  flung 
out  on  either  side,  one  toward  France  and  one  toward 
Barcelona,  are  her  vegetating  arms.  The  one  that  has 
clutched  out  so  many  years  for  France  has  germinated 
towering  chestnut  trees,  which  intermingle  above  like  the 
nave-lines  of  a  cathedral;  the  other,  lazily  stagnating  in 
her  own  more  sterile  country,  has  reared,  in  far  lines  of 
erect  branching  files,  great  snake-barked,  large-leaved 
planetas.  Her  head  is  a  church,  half  buried  in  the  hill- 
side. 

By  sunlight,  she  is  like  a  time-worn  beauty,  brightened 
with  rouge  on  her  death-bed,  for  her  houses  display  gay 
colours  through  her  filth. 

But  now,  her  withered  loveliness  was  invisible,  for  she 
lay  fast  asleep,  in  heaviest  dark,  just  twitching  in  a  few 
rheumatic  muscles  as  she  felt  the  approach  of  dawn.  Some 

67 


68  The  Great  Way 

of  these  muscles  were  fishermen's  wives,  cooking  by  candle- 
light. Still  more  painful  ones,  nearer  her  wet  feet,  were 
fishers  themselves,  dragging  up  their  sails.  And,  quite 
close  to  her  heart,  upon  one  of  her  ribs,  was  one  wide- 
awake, quivering  nerve,  vibrating  yet  stoically  calm  in  its 
unthinking  agony. 

It  was  a  nun.  Under  the  one  night-light  of  Mataro, 
she  stood,  on  one  of  the  steps,  with  folded  arms,  her  back 
to  the  huge  arm  that  pointed  at  France  below  its  caver- 
nous trees,  and  gazing,  as  some  starved  prisoner  might 
gaze  at  life,  along  the  other  great  limb  that  stretched, 
among  its  branches  of  ghostly  sycamore,  toward  Barce- 
lona. And  this  nun  beneath  the  light,  with  those  thin, 
folded  arms,  sunken-shouldered  yet  erect  in  the  rigid  fall 
of  her  worn  black  habit,  without  female  curves,  without 
any  human  curves  at  all,  was  yet  like  a  curving,  deliberate, 
ominous  question-mark  written  by  an  atheist  below  a  sym- 
bol of  Christ. 

And  the  symbol  was  there,  too,  directly  above  her 
parchment-coloured,  wax-faced  head.  Let  into  the  wall 
of  the  little  house  on  the  corner,  it  hung  under  the  lamp 
in  a  glass-coloured  oaken  box — a  small  figure  of  Christ 
on  a  cross,  palely  waxen  and  bleeding  dark  red  wax,  suf- 
fused about  with  pink  and  blue  and  yellow  waxen  flowers 
deader  than  flowers  pressed  for  love  in  a  book,  dead  as  the 
face  of  the  nun,  whose  barren  fire  flamed  only  in  its  black, 
piercing  eyes;  so  piercing  that  through  the  still  blacker 
hour  before  dawn  they  saw,  stealing  swiftly  forward  be- 
tween the  ghost-like  heavy  sycamore  trunks,  a  woman's 
figure. 

Vague  to  the  sight,  but  surely,  it  came  on  and  on, 
beneath  the  gracious,  thick  planeta  leaves,  toward  the  nun, 
nearer,  and  nearer,  like  the  stealthy  approach  of  climax 
through  a  poem,  or  the  tramp  of  an  actress  to  the  high- 
light of  a  dim  canvas  set. 

And  when  it  spied  the  nun,  the  one  life  showing  in  the 
sepulchral  town,  it  came  directly  up  to  her,  and  raised  its 
eyes. 


The  Devourers  69 

"Sister,  can  I  find  work  here?" 

"Get  out!"  said  the  nun's  lips,  tightly-moving  and  red 
in  her  yellow  face  as  if  they  were  one  of  the  waxen  wounds 
in  the  Christ  above  her  head. 

"Sister,"  exclaimed  the  shivering  girl  in  haste,  "I  do 
not  come  as  a  pauper  to  the  town!  You  need  not  fear 
it !  But  I  must  have  work  to  do !  I  only  ask  you,  can  I 
get  it  here?" 

"Get  out!"  said  the  nun.  The  girl  had  met  her  eyes 
in  her  hurried  fervent  speech,  and  as  they  watched  her 
from  above  the  thin  closed  lips  now,  the  girl  knew  that 
they  were  reading  her  life-work,  word  by  word,  through 
and  through,  and  a  quick  angry  flush  came  into  her  white 
cheeks. 

"How  do  you  dare?  How  do  you  dare  to  cross  your- 
self at  me  ?  You  do  not  know  whether  I  am  a  Catholic  or 
not!" 

"Get  out!"  said  the  nun.  And  the  shivering  figure, 
after  a  glance  upward  at  the  waxen  one  that  had  to  hang 
so  still,  bent  her  head  resolutely  and,  through  the  dark 
cathedral-like  street  of  silent  chestnut-trees,  went  away. 

But  the  nun  suddenly  ran  after  her,  and  seized  her  in 
the  dark.  Her  tight  lips  moved  swiftly  now,  and  her 
voice  shook,  in  her  scared  impulse. 

"We  must  not  have  your  sort  here.  But  I  will  give 
you  a  whole  loaf  of  bread,  if  you  will  tell  me  your  story !" 

Dulce  laughed  bitterly.  "I  will  tell  you — not  for 
bread,  which  I  shall  work  for — but  for  the  sake  of  telling, 
of  telling!" 

"Hush!"  whispered  the  nun,  her  fingers  denting  her 
waxy  lips.  "Come!"  and  she  dragged  her  by  the  wrist 
back  toward  the  light,  and  past  it  down  to  the  edge  of  a 
dry  river-bed,  dotted  with  pools  of  a  stagnating  torrent 
from  the  Pyrenees,  and  across  a  tottering  plank  into  a 
scow  stranded  in  the  mire.  "Sit  there !  Speak  low ! 
Here  is  your  bread !  Have  you  been  very  bad  ?" 

"Keep  your  bread !"  whispered  Dulce,  fiercely.  "I  will 
tell  you  because  I  promised,  and  because  it  will  help  my 


70  The  Great  Way 

mind,  perhaps.  Poor  thing,  I  see  what  you  are!  I  am 
a  wretched  thing,  God  knows,  but  you — you  are  what  I 
feared  to  be,  instead  of  what  I  am,  and  you  make  me  glad 
in  this  very  hour  of  my  punishment  that  I  chose  as  I  did !" 

"Do  you  dare  to  insult  me?"  hissed  the  whispering 
nun. 

"I  dare  always  to  tell  the  truth !"  whispered  Dulce. 
"And  I  tell  you  that  as  you  sit  opposite  me  now,  I  see 
exactly  what  I  saw  and  feared  and  refused  to  be,  in  the 
hour  of  my  choice!  God  pity  me,  but  you,  more!" 

"Well,  well,"  whispered  the  nun,  "I  only  bargained 
with  you,  out  of  kindness,  for  your  story,  so  let  us  not 
quarrel.  Tell  me,  are  you  with  child?" 

"No!"  cried  Dulce,  forgetting  to  whisper.  "I  would 
to  God  I  were !" 

"You  are  bad,  are  you  not?"  exclaimed  the  nun,  clasp- 
ing her  hands. 

"Not  in  that,"  said  Dulce  calmly.  "Wherein  I  am 
bad,  is  in  sitting  here  and  telling  your  sort  of  my  sins. 
To  know  me  briefly,  then,  once  for  all,  I  have  been  in  the 
Trudge  Market,  and  you,  with  your  pretty  imagination, 
can  understand  what  that  term  means.  And  now  I  have 
left  it,  and  left  it  forever.  Thus,  you  know  exactly  how 
bad  I  have  been,  and  after  what  manner.  But  to  give  you 
good  measure  for  your  kindly  loaf  of  bread,  I  will  tell  you 
what  my  present  badness  is,  as  we  sit  here  this  minute. 
The  Trudge  Market  is  a  market  that  sells  emotions.  But 
like  any  other  market,  the  butcher's,  for  instance,  there 
are  certain  worthless  goods  that  are  not  fit  to  sell.  And 
my  present  sin  is,  that  having  left  the  market  forever,  I 
yet  sit  down  here  with  you,  and  chew  at  the  bones  that 
were  thrown  behind  the  counter." 

**You — you  are  quite  horrible,"  whispered  the  breath- 
less nun. 

"I  am  no  more  horrible  than  you,"  said  Dulce. 
"Those  bones  are  only  un-sold  emotions,  remember.  And 
you  do  something  not  so  different — you  eat  your  own 
heart;  eat  it,  and  eat  it,  and  eat  it." 


The  Devourers  71 

"But,"  hesitated  the  nun,  "I  cannot  do  anything  else, 
for  I  cannot  leave  my — my " 

"Mar — Sanctuary,"  said  Dulce. 

"Just  so,"  said  the  nun.  "And  why  did  you  leave 
yours?" 

"Because  I  loved  one  of  my  customers.  And  because 
he,  finding  it  out,  and  knowing  that  he  therefore  could  not 
honestly  pay  in  full,  ran  away  from  the  bad  debt.  So  I, 
being  responsible  for  it,  ran  away  from  the  market." 

"Perhaps  he  will  come  back  again,  to  pay  honestly," 
said  the  nun. 

Dulce  shivered.  "Do  not  say  romantic  things  of  that 
sort,  nun !" 

"But,"  whispered  the  nun,  "was  his  body  beautiful?" 
Her  whisper  grew  hastily  lower.  "You  need  not  look  at 
me  with  contempt  like  that!  I  only  asked  because,  if  it 
was,  his  soul  might  become  beautiful  too,  and  fetch  him 
back,  to  honourably  pay !" 

"You  are  romantic,  hideously  romantic,"  answered 
Dulce,  "because  your  life  forbids  you  to  know  life!" 
And  she  shivered  again. 

Less  black,  grey,  more  grey,  pearl  grey,  stepped  the 
dawn  across  the  great  sea  toward  Mataro;  and  as  if  to 
discourage  its  delicacy,  the  river-bed  was  sending  up  all 
about  them  a  brownish,  ugly  mist. 

"But,"  persisted  the  nun,  "it  might  be!  Look! 
There  on  the  bank  is  a  figure  peering  at  us,  trying  to 
define  us  through  the  mist !  God  works  miracles — it 
might  be  he !  Tell  me,  is  the  tall  fine  shape  like  him  ?** 

"Yes,  yes,"  said  Dulce,  wearily,  and  closing  her  eyes, 
"it  is  like  him,  truly.  But  that  is  only  because  of  your 
ravenous  imagination  and  my  ravenous  pain." 

"Well,  it  is  gone,  now,  anyway,"  sighed  the  nun. 
"And  if  it  was  a  miracle  of  God,  perhaps  it  was  one  in 
my  behalf,  for  though  I  have  always  kept  my  thoughts 
pure,  even  in  my  prayers,  I  yet  have  prayed  often  and 
often  that  I  might  see  something  pretty,  or  have  some 
pretty  thing  seek  to  look  at  me.  And  yet,  hateful  as  you 


72  The  Great  Way 

'have  been  to  me  in  the  things  that  you  have  said,  I  could 
still  wish  that  this  might  have  been  a  miracle  for  you,  for 
I  have  never  yet  heard  such  a  story  as  you  told.  Here 
is  your  loaf  of  bread  for  it.  The  light  is  coming.  I  must 
go." 

"As  for  saying  hateful  things  to  you,"  cried  Dulce 
angrily,  "I  have  said  nothing  to  you  but  the  truth,  and 
I  said  that  not  hating  you,  but  pitying  you!  Who  am 
I  to  hate  anyone,  tell  me  that,  after  what  I  have  told 
you!  In  our  souls,  we  are  both  starving  creatures,  and 
you  offer  me  a  soiled  loaf  of  bread  for  feeding  your  mind ! 
All  the  wickedness  that  I  have  said  to  you  is  that  we  are 
alike,  that  we  are  both  eaters-of-men,  you  in  your  way 
and  I  in  mine.  And  now  you  have  made  us  cannibals  in 
another  sense — quarrelling — eating  each  other!" 

"It  is  light !  It  is  daylight !"  cried  the  frightened  nun. 
"I  must  not  be  found  talking  with  a  bad  woman  like 
you!  Take  your  bread  quickly,  and  get  out!" 

"I  came  here  seeking  something!"  cried  Dulce  pas- 
sionately. "And  what  have  I?  I  came  seeking  work, 
and  failing  that,  a  word — a  word  of  light,  no  matter  how 
small !  And  you  give  me  this,  and  I  tell  you  I  will  not 
take  it !" 

"Get  out!"  screamed  the  nun,  furiously;  and  as  Dulce 
fled  across  the  plank  to  the  shore,  she  hurled  the  loaf 
after  her. 

Instinctively,  Dulce  picked  it  up  to  hurl  it  back.  But, 
quite  as  instinctively,  she  shrank  from  such  ugliness,  and 
putting  it  under  her  arm  she  hastened  through  the  crum- 
bling stomach  of  the  town,  and  again  into  the  shadowed 
street  of  chestnut-trees,  and  away. 


CHAPTER  XI 

SOMETHING  TO   DO 

JT  was  high  noon. 

It  was  beyond  Caldetas,  where  once  the  Moors  held 
sway,  and  where  they  come  as  ghosts  at  sundown  still, 
to  plague  and  frighten  Spanish  Christians — and  such 
French  ones,  too,  as  have  now  crept  down  around  the 
Pyrenees. 

And  it  was  inland,  for  her  way,  a  white  road  twisting 
back  of  her  through  a  hot  yellow  valley,  was  separated 
by  only  one  line  of  hills  from  a  sparse  desolate  village 
with  a  name  almost  as  long  as  its  distance  from  the  sea — 
Viladecabades,  which  looks  straight  upon  the  face  of  the 
vast  Holy  Mountain,  that  huge  grey  monster  of  slate  that 
rises  unique  and  sheer  from  the  maze  of  foot-hills,  up- 
holding the  monastery  that  once  upheld  the  Holy  Grail. 

Here,  where  Dulce  had  trudged,  perhaps  Parsifal  had 
journeyed;  but  Dulce,  unlearned  of  legendry  and  Chris- 
tian mysteries,  did  not  know  that. 

Here,  too,  perhaps  had  passed  Kundry  herself,  who, 
dyed  crimson  in  sins,  had  cursed  herself  with  bloody 
laughter;  but  Dulce,  for  all  her  similar  sin  and  madness, 
did  not  laugh. 

She  was  sitting  in  the  road,  against  a  rock,  which  felt 
no  harder  than  a  small  chunk  of  bread  she  was  trying  to 
swallow,  bitten  from  a  loaf  that  had  been  as  white  as  the 
roadway  and  was  now  as  dirty.  Beyond  her,  this  glaring 
white  dusty  road  snaked  suddenly  up  a  hillside  of  little 
cork-trees  to  a  little  yellowish  church  with  fantastic 
Moorish  windows;  but  she  gave  it  no  heed,  and  did  not 
even  realize  that  both  the  church  and  she  were  sitting 

73 


74  The  Great  Way 

almost  in  the  shadow  of  the  Holy  Mountain — the  onlj 
shadow  that  she  noticed  was  one  that  she  saw  suddenly 
in  front  of  her,  and  which  frightened  her  almost  to  her 
feet,  for  it  lay,  black  on  the  white  road,  in  the  form  of 
some  human  monster,  with  big  horns. 

"Do  you  need  help,  girl?" 

Dulce  gasped  with  relief  at  the  kind  voice  and  the 
figure  it  came  from,  whose  poor  Spanish  and  wide-winged 
linen  headgear  showed  her  to  be  a  French  sister  instead 
of  a  gargoyle. 

"I — want  work,"  said  Dulce,  choking  from  the  slowly 
descending  bit  of  bread.  "I  had  no  right  to  eat  that. 
Oh !"  and  she  cast  the  bitten  loaf  from  her  with  a  shiver. 
"Now  it  will  return  to  me,  I  suppose,  on  such  dry  waters 
as  it  came  from.  But  I  thought  it  might  fetch  me  to 
some  work  if  I  could  swallow  it." 

"I  can  fetch  you  as  far  as  the  church,"  said  the  French 
sister,  "and  there  you  shall  have  work,  and  something 
clean  to  eat  beforehand.  We  are  just  now  from  France, 
whence  we  were  driven,  and  there  is  scrubbing  needed 
indeed  in  this  country  of  yours !"  They  went  together 
through  the  golden  landscape,  the  sister  kindly  urging 
her  elbow,  and  into  the  yellow  church. 

And  after  she  had  eaten  her  bread  and  drunk  her 
goafs-milk,  there  proved  certainly  floors  to  scrub  and 
walls  to  scrub,  and  she  fell  even  more  gratefully,  greedily 
upon  these,  with  a  queer  gladness  creeping  through  her 
agony  of  soul.  And  as  the  afternoon  slipped  toward 
evening,  into  the  soul  slipped  a  rhythmic  song  of  scrub- 
bing. .  .  .  Scrub,  scrub,  scrub.  .  .  .  Thank  God,  the 
French  demanded  cleanliness !  .  .  .  Scrub,  scrub, 
scrub.  .  .  . 

Bright  evening  came,  and  with  the  benefice  of  her  pres- 
ence shining  on  speckless  floors  and  gleaming  walls,  she 
let  herself  stand  idle  for  a  moment,  gazing  through  a 
rounded  window  at  the  glory  of  sundown  spread  above 
the  foot-hills,  preparing  the  funeral  of  her  first  searching 
day. 


Something  to  Do  75 

"Daughter!" 

She  turned  quickly,  surprised  at  the  voice,  then  more 
surprised  at  the  human  beauty  standing,  like  herself, 
against  the  golden  halo  of  sunset.  It  was  a  priest,  whose 
hood  had  fallen  back  against  his  cassock,  revealing  a  head 
whose  sunlit  splendour  thrilled  her — and  baffled,  almost 
frightened  her,  for  it  brought  her  an  ungraspable,  fleet- 
ing memory.  Its  lovely  face  was  not  young — rather,  old 
beyond  its  years,  and  suffused,  along  with  the  sunlight, 
with  the  spirit  of  youth.  It  was  bent  down  a  little,  to 
meet  her  eyes. 

"After  labour  done,  rest,  my  child.  And  to-night, 
come  to  me  for  confession."  At  the  feared  words,  she 
shrank  back  against  the  wall. 

"Is — is  it  necessary,  father,  that  I  should  confess?" 

"We  gave  you  work.  Consider,  should  you  stay  with 
us  unabsolved?  You  told  your  need.  We  gave." 

His  logic  chanced  with  straight  weight  upon  the  one 
possible  leverage  of  her  soul. 

"Then — then  I  will  come  to  you.  But  tell  me,  father, 
have — have  I  not  seen  you,  father,  in  Sevilla?" 

"I  am  thus  far  south  from  France,  where  Christ  is 
no  longer  even  crucified.  I  have  been  never  in  Sevilla, 
child." 

He  was  gone,  leaving  her  staring  after  him.  His 
piteous  syllables  about  France  had  not  caused  her  wide- 
eyed  seeking  look;  she  was  accustomed  to  her  country's 
austerity  toward  nations  of  giddier  religious  tenor.  It 
was  his  last  words  that  had  renewed  the  escaping  memory 
which  his  sunset-haloed  beauteous  head  had  stirred  as  a 
breeze  of  Tantalus  brevity  stirs  water  surrounded  by 
dark  protective  trees — renewed  it,  and  confused  it.  Then 
as  he  vanished,  she  caught  the  words  securely,  and  held 
them.  "They  were  my  own — I  said  them  to  myself  last 
night  of — of  Jose  Luis :  'He  has  been  never  in  Sevilla' ; 
God,  will  I  for  ever  be  gouged  with  little  words  like  that? 
I  was  getting  out  my  castanuelas  for  him!  .  .  .  But— 
that  face.  ,  ." 


76  The  Great  Way 

Her  eyes  caught  the  highest  glory  of  the  radiating 
light,  the  head  seemed  outlined  against  it  again,  and  truer, 
better-lighted  recollection  came  like  sunset-glow  through 
the  tree-darkness  to  her. 

The  day  when  she  had  bought  those  same  castanets  in 
Seville,  she  had  gone  also  to  the  Hospital  of  La  Caridad 
and  into  its  little  baroque  church,  for  whose  walls  Murillo, 
two  and  a  half  centuries  before,  had  painted  eight  of  his 
greatest  pictures.  No  more  than  she  knew  that  far,  far 
longer  ago  Kundry  may  have  trudged  on  some  hellish 
errand  a  few  rods  from  where  she  stood  in  the  sunset 
now,  did  Dulce  know  that  some  of  these  pictures  had  been 
raped  Kundry-like  away  from  Spain  by  Soult,  Napoleon's 
great  combination  general  and  picture-dealer,  for  France, 
who  still  loved  Murillo's  Christs  if  she  no  longer  cared 
for  Christ  Himself.  But  she  did  know  that  as  she  had 
entered  that  second-rate  edifice  of  first-rate  Brotherhood, 
the  Young  John  the  Baptist,  holding  the  Infant  Saviour, 
and  glowing  as  exquisitely  on  that  Hermanidad  wall  as 
the  space  of  sunlit  window  with  the  priest's  head  against 
it  had  glowed  here  now,  was  the  first  great  Murillo  that 
she  had  ever  seen,  in  its  actual  body,  except  the  wonder- 
ful Saint  Catharine  at  home  in  Cadiz.  Yet  if  not  in 
actual  body,  one  other  great  Murillo,  at  least  one,  in  its 
active,  very  active  soul,  she  had  known,  and  not  only  in 
Cadiz,  but  literally  "at  home"  in  Cadiz ;  known,  and 
loved,  as  she  had  happened  to  know,  and  had  not  hap- 
pened to  love,  the  people  in  that  home — of  which,  both 
picture  and  people,  she  had  been,  as  it  chanced,  reminded 
with  a  life-lasting  mark  that  very  same  night  afterward  in 
that  very  same  Sevilla,  while  she  was  dancing  in  the 
street.  .  .  .  She  had  never  known  the  name  of  it,  nor 
bothered  to  think  about  what  land  its  original  had  been 
stolen  to,  but  it  was  the  master's  overmastering  "Saint 
Francis  of  Padua,"  too  with  a  baby  Christ,  and  with 
near-by  cherub-held  Saint  John  Lilies,  and  a  nearly  as 
near-by  cloud  of  light-germinated  cherubs.  Perhaps  even 
the  clumsy  colours  of  the  copy  had  held  no  distemper 


Something  to  Do  77 

for  her  early  in  her  knowledge  of  it.  Yet  it  was  very 
early  too  that  through  its  chromo-screech  she  had  heard 
the  undertone  song  of  its  soul,  and  learned  for  Murillo 
a  child-love  that  was  family  with  the  Murillo  wide-world 
love,  yet  partook  too  of  unconscious  perception  that 
would  afterward  consciously  found  and  justify  a  buckling, 
octave-esque  and  poignant  love  from  instinctive  art-sym- 
pathy, and  from  brain  .  .  .  love  understanding  people, 
and  ignorant  feeling,  love  understanding  aesthetics,  and 
their  fight  with  arithmetic. 

Buckling  now,  memory  .swiftly  bringing  from  Seville 
to  far  Cadiz  flashed  fully  to  her  that  the  hitch  of  this 
priest  to  Sevilla  was  not  the  young  John  Baptist,  that 
"joy  of  all  mothers"  world- radiating  along  with  its  nick- 
name from  the  little  Caridad,  but  was  simply  Murillo, 
the  Murillo  of  eternally  miraculous  vaporoso,  the  vapo- 
roso  of  those  Caridad  walls,  of  this  sunset  on  these  walls 
here  and  now,  of  a  great  genius's  latterly  years  wherein 
an  unearthly  glow  came  through  him  to  earth — and  par- 
ticularly, peculiarly,  the  Murillo  of  that  Paduan  Saint 
Francis. 

This  priest's  had  been  that  same  beautiful  bent  face, 
very  slightly  bending,  as  if  over  that  responsive,  caress- 
ing roly-poly  Jesus,  against  the  same  soft,  "vaporoso," 
yet  here  brighter  light. 

And  at  this  dead  memory  resurrected  into  this  living 
picture,  all  fear  of  confession  to  this  man  vanished  from 
her  soul. 

For  there  seemed  kindness  in  him;  and  kindness  is 
the  sweetest  of  all  medicines:  one  good  to  take  from  any 
hand,  even  if  one  desires  it  from  one  only. 


CHAPTER  XH 

THE  WHEEL 

YET  in  the  black  night  that  came  with  little  catches  of 
wind  through  the  fantasy  of  the  Moorish  window  of  his 
cell,  flickered  in  by  a  single  candle's  light,  his  face  was 
less  like  the  tender,  sweet  Murillo.  Its  age  prevailed 
upon  its  youth ;  the  eye-socket's  harmed  the  exquisite  con- 
tour of  the  cheeks ;  and  she  faltered  as  the  great  eyes 
looked  up  at  her  across  his  bare  small  table.  He  opened 
his  lips  to  speak,  but  her  own  prevented. 

"Father,  before  my  confession  to  the  Church,  if  I  must 
make  it,  will  you  not  talk  to  me,  a  little,  as  a  friend?" 

"My  child,  I  must  be  no  one's  friend  save  as  a  priest ! 
Consider!  Do  you  know  nothing  of  the  magnificent  aus- 
terity of  priesthood?'* 

"Oh,"  she  cried,  tremblingly,  her  hands  lifting  a  little 
toward  him  as  if  their  muscles  alone,  and  not  her  wish, 
impelled  them,  and  a  little  catch  in  her  voice  from  a  sense 
of  disappointment  that  would  have  been  small  to  her  in 
converse  yesterday  with  any  being  but  one,  but  that  was 
great  and  bitter  in  her  weary  weakness  now,  "if  I  did  not 
know  of  it,  I  think  I  begin  to  know!  Indeed,  I  think  I 
understand  you  better  than  you  did  me!  Then,  as  my 
friend  a  priest,  will  you  not  let  me  tell  you  of  myself,  not 
in  confession,  but  just — so — and  then  help  me  if  you  can? 
Father,"  and  she  hastened  her  words  on  to  stop  his  stop- 
ping them,  "my  life  has  been  a  street  life,  full  of  evil 
again  and  again,  by  which  I  earned  my  bread.  But,  my 
last  such  sin  I  do  not  repent  of — and  I  should  mention 
I  took  no  bread  from  it,  by  the  way.  It  fetched  me  from 
the  other,  and  say  as  you  will,  God  sent  it  to  me.  It 

78 


The  Wheel  79 

taught  me  all  I  know,  and  I  know  this :  I  must  pay  back 
in  some  way,  into  the  world — into  Things,  if  you  can 
understand  me — for  what  I  have  done.  Oh,  the  thought 
is  horrible — no,  I  must  not  say  that! — but  anyway, 
terrible !" 

He  was  watching  her  mysteriously,  intensely,  with  his 
inscrutable  brilliant  eyes.  In  his  calm,  high  degree  of 
concentration,  wherein  he  sat  totally  motionless,  he  had 
changed  again.  His  youth  had  returned  to  him,  the 
glitter  of  the  studying  eyes  dispelling  the  gloom  of  their 
sockets  and  making  the  contours  of  the  face  once  more 
so  lovely  that  he  should  have  been  painted  for  a  church. 
But  even  so  he  was  not  the  Murillo.  He  might  have  been 
an  angel  now;  but  never  more  for  the  hungry  girl  before 
him  that  thing  of  vaporoso,  the  tender  young  Paduan 
Francis.  His  was  a  brooding  spirit,  one  of  fire  quiet 
and  white-hot.  And  this,  vivid  against  blackness ;  and 
yet,  from  France  though  he  might  be,  or  from  wherever, 
Rome  itself,  Limbo,  mere,  sheer  Christendom,  still  this 
something  else  that  he  seemed  to  her  was  something  else 
Spanish — Spanish  despite  its  dominant  tone  was  black, 
pervasive  black,  its  only  colours  the  amalgamate  fierce 
essence  of  colours,  white.  Those  golden  vapours  of 
Murillo,  she  had  learnt  further  by  heart,  after  Seville,  in 
her  brief,  high-lit,  hungry  sojourn  in  Madrid,  where  she 
had  had  more  art  to  eat  than  bread;  and  the  Museo  del 
Prado  had  shown  her  other  things  than  the  sunlight  of 
Spanish  paint,  and  again  her  mind  in  its  hour's  odd  mode 
was  putting  out  tentacles.  But  she  was  listening. 

"As  your  friend  a  priest,  in  friendly  priestly  reply  to 
what  you  have  volunteered  to  me,  I  will  tell  you  one  all- 
important  thing.  There  is  one  all-powerful  way  to  repay 
all  sin:  the  Church,  my  child." 

She  shivered,  unaware  of  shivering,  and  thinking  her- 
self quite  calm,  like  himself,  and  as  were  her  words,  for 
the  tense  quiet  of  the  beautiful  spirit  before  her  had  re- 
lent her  confidence. 

"That  is  no  way  for  me,  father.     And  before  I  can 


80  The  Great  Way 

know  what  way,  I  must  more  fully  understand  myself. 
And  there,  you  can  help  me  somewhat,  if  you  will. 
There  is  something  in  the  Bible,  a  particular  some- 
thing, that  I  would  like  you  to  read  out  to  me.  Is 
that  a  Bible,  father?"' 

And  she  pointed  to  a  great,  aged  book  upon  hi;s 
table. 

"It  is  a  testament,  the  old,  in  an  abandoned  language, 
the  Vulgate." 

"I  think  I  can  find  it  there,  and  you  could  translate 
for  me." 

She  had  already  drawn  the  big  volume  toward  her,  but 
his  voice  in  one  word,  and  his  right  hand  in  one  gesture, 
drove  her  in  an  electrical  terror  back  from  it. 

"Slowly!" 

Resonant,  loud  and  clear,  it  had  come  from  the  young 
stately  man  like  the  stroke  of  a  great  bell  in  an  alarm- 
clang;  the  gesture  with  which  the  white  hand  had  briefly 
cleaved  the  air  toward  her  had  held  indeed  all  the  austere 
magnitude  of  priesthood.  White  and  black,  as  if  he  were 
cameo  made  of  flesh  and  velvet,  and  flickered  over  by  the 
golden  candle-fire,  he  was  like  a  pure  demon,  some  crea- 
ture from  before  the  throne  of  God,  infused  by  divine 
purpose  with  the  right  of  wrath.  She  had  shrunk  away 
gradual  step  by  gradual  step  into  the  very  doorway, 
where  she  stood  with  wide  staring  eyes  gazing  at  the 
phenomenon  of  him. 

"You  show  a  strange,  bold  spirit,  girl !" 

"Yes,  that — that  is  I,  exactly !"  she  succeeded  in  whis- 
pering; but  he  froze  her  to  silence  with  his  own  silence, 
and  his  eyes. 

"From  words  chosen  by  yourself,  you  come  to  me  a 
penitent,  I  think — one  to  be  led,  not  one  to  lead !  Then 
shall  you  reach  out  for  my  book,  and  point  out  to  me  what 
to  do  for  you?  Answer  me  this:  you  say  with  a  prompt 
metal  assurance  that  the  convent  is  no  way  for  you ;  how 
do  you  know  that  it  is  not  a  way?  How  do  you  know 
that  it  is  not  the  way — the  only  way?" 


The  Wheel  81 

Her  voice  was  still  husky  under  the  spell  of  his  fierce 
authority,  but  again  she  succeeded  in  using  it. 

"I — I  know  myself,"  she  said. 

"You  have  just  told  me  that  what  you  needed  was 
fuller  understanding  of  yourself !" 

Despite  his  hot  logic  she  felt  a  shade  of  injustice  in 
the  swift  words,  and  her  voice  grew  momentarily  stronger. 

"To  that  extent,  indeed  I  know  myself!  To  that  ex- 
tent I  have  always  known!  And  if  you  wish  to  more 
understand  me  than  just  my  word,  all  that  I  have  felt 
about  convents  was  proven  to  me  at  dawn  to-day,  when 
I  asked  a  nun  at  Mataro  for  work  and  after  reviling  me 
she  talked  to  me  in  the  river-bed,  bargaining  with  me 
for  all  the  wickedness  of  my  story.  I  knew  then  that 
I  had  been  right  when  as  a  child  I  chose  the  sunlight  of 
the  streets  instead,  for  it  was  horrible,  she  was  horrible !" 

He  rose,  tall,  slight,  straight,  like  a  glittering  arrow 
pointing  heavenward,  though  his  arm  and  slender  hand 
and  trembling  forefinger  were  directed  forthright  toward 
herself,  and  her  heart  seemed  to  sink,  and  stop,  and 
freeze,  as  if  these  were  a  weapon. 

"A  holy  nun,  of  the  Church,  horrible?  Take  care! 
Shall  you  dare  say  so,  you,  a  scarlet  woman?" 

Yet  she  dared  to  stammer: 

"Is  every  human  being  in  the  Church  good,  not  only 
in  the  body  but  in  the  mind?" 

She  trembled  in  his  wonderful  presence  as  she  asked 
it,  but  his  eyes  were  justly  searching  hers  and  he  received 
it  with  dispassion. 

"If  she  seemed  evil  to  you  it  was  the  devil  in  your  own 
soul  painted  her!" 

There  was  a  sob  in  the  full  voice  with  which  she  sud- 
denly cried  out : 

"Oh !    Oh !    The  devil  is  not  in  my  soul !" 

"Girl,  who  are  you  to  know?" 

The  resounding  belfry-tone  with  which  he  had  cried 
back  his  reply  made  her  sway  in  the  doorway,  and  reverted 
her  to  the  entire  possession  by  fear  that  had  sent  her 


82  The  Great  Way 

tottering  back  from  the  testament  at  his  first  commamd 
to  her. 

"You  who  decry  a  sacred  woman  of  life-sacrifice  to 
God's  work,  you  who  say  that  her  way  is  not  one  for  you, 
which  indeed  it  is  not  for  any  woman  of  determined  sin, 
tell  you  me  this:  Are  you,  or  have  you  ever  been,  or 
pretended  to  be,  a  Christian?  The  word  'Catholic'  I 
do  not  use,  for  there  is  but  one  Christian  in  the  world 
—the  Catholic !" 

With  a  little  moan  of  desperate  confusion,  she  opened 
the  eyes  that  she  had  closed  in  the  blaze  of  his  look,  and 
met  his,  with  face  quivering,  through  a  silent  moment 
in  which  she  sought  to  plumb  her  mind  and  soul  for  the 
truth. 

"I — do  not  know,"  she  said.  "I  think  I  was  a  Chris- 
tian, when  I  was  a  child.  Anyway,  I  was  born  a  Catholic. 
But  though  I  supposed  I  still  was,  can  I  have  been  a — a 
Christian  all  those  years  I  was  committing  that  sin?  Is 
such  a  combination  possible?  Who  am  I  indeed  that  I 
should  know?  And  as  for  now,  when  I  am  sinful  no 
longer — for  I  have  stopped,  forever,  oh,  forever,  I  assure 
you! — I  still  do  not  know,  for  where  I  used  to  believe 
everything,  sins  or  no  sins,  now  there  are  some  things  I  do 
not  believe !  At  this  moment  I  cannot  tell  you  what  they 
are,  for  my  mind  is  sickly.  But  one,  for  a  great  instance, 
I  can  tell  you — I  do  not  believe  in  hell.  No,  except  as  it 
sits  around  us  here  on  earth,  where  I  have  lived  in  it.  Yes, 
the  more  I  think  about  God,  the  less  I  believe  in  it,  and 
except  for  the  rest  that  I  may  have  to  trudge  through 
here,  I  do  not  believe  that  there  is  any  more !" 

"Daring  soul,"  he  cried,  and  his  words  were  vibrant 
with  something  almost  like  pain  in  the  richness  of  his 
exhortation,  "beware  that  if  God  does  not  hear  your 
every  word  because  of  His  infinitude  of  businesses,  I,  His 
representative,  do !  Beware !  As  such  representative  I 
declare  to  you  there  is  hell,  and  from  my  whole  conviction 
as  a  studied  man,  I  charge  you  as  you  look  me  in  the 
eyes  to  learn  from  me  now  that  if  there  is  any  hell  for 


The  Wheel  83 

any  human  beings,  for  -fallen-away  Catholics  there  is  a 
special  and  a  double  hell — doubly  deep,  doubly  isolate, 
of  lakes  of  doubly  potent  flame  wherein  to  the  seared  and 
wrenched  soul  eternal  damnation  seems  doubly  infinite !" 
His  finger  pointed  at  her  again  and  her  body  twisted  in 
the  doorway  as  if  its  white  heat  had  touched  her.  "And 
such,  a  Catholic  fallen  away,  you  boldly  dare  to  state 
yourself  to  be!" 

"These — are  words,"  she  gasped,  seeking  wildly  within 
herself  for  strength  though  terror  had  suffused  her  eyes 
beyond  her  power  to  wipe  away.  "You  speak  them  and 
believe  them,  but  my  soul  does  not  tell  me  that  they  are 
true !" 

"Wretched  soul!"  rang  his  voice  loudly  and  awfully. 
"What  should  or  can  it  know  to  tell  you  that  would 
surmount  the  knowledge  and  the  word  of  God  the  Christ? 
I  do  not  condemn  you,  for  His  Church  forbids  me;  but 
with  all  my  authority  I  repeat :  Beware !  Who  are  you 
to  know  that  in  rejecting  the  cloister  as  the  way,  at 
smallest  a  way,  for  the  retracing  of  your  crimson  path, 
you  do  not  commit  a  sin  worse  than  any,  yes,  worse  than 
the  total  all,  of  all  your  sins?" 

Shaken  throughout  and  all  over  by  the  spiritual  fright- 
fulness  of  the  thought,  she  stepped  a  pace  toward  him, 
as  if  her  uncontrolled  body  were  starting  to  fall,  or  her- 
self were  drawn  inevitably  forward  by  the  power  of  his 
majestic  beauty  and  the  command  of  his  overmastering 
righteousness.  And  aware  of  the  fierce  potency  of  such 
fear  as  had  swept  her  at  his  dread  suggestion,  she  gave 
a  low  helpless  little  moan,  a  little  sobbing  childish  outcry, 
and  bending  her  head  between  crouched  shoulders  covered 
her  face  with  her  hands  away  from  the  vivid  sight  of  him. 

"I  warn  you,"  his  voice  tolled  swiftly  on,  with  the 
seeming  outcome,  to  her  mental  and  physical  senses,  of 
harder  and  harder  metals  stricken  together,  "in  dedica- 
tion to  the  Church  and  her  service  lies  a  sinner's  safety: 
so  much  is  definite  truth,  indubitable.  You  have  asked 
help;  I  will  help  you  to  a  cloister*  Whereas  otherwise, 


what  know  we  of  your  end  that  has  no  end?  Choose! 
For  pictures  of  your  precipice,  within  this  cell  where  now 
you  stand  is  the  Truth,  the  Inner  Light — I  represent  it; 
outside,  where  you  have  trod  and  desire  still  to  tread, 
beyond  these  doorways,  is  the  desolation  of  abomination 
like  to  the  black  thick  night  to  be  seen  there  through  that 
window — the  Outer  Darkness.  Choose !  For  within  lies 
a  way  infallibly  right,  while  take  again  the  path  without, 
and  how  do  you  know,  who  are  you  and  who  am  even 
I  to  know,  that  your  refusal  of  God's  proffer  now,  or  the 
mere  very  thought  before  the  word  of  your  denial  of  hell, 
may  not  be  not  alone  the  deepest  yet  of  all  your  sins,  but 
indeed  the  one  unforgivable  sin,  the  sin  against  the  Holy 
Ghost?" 

At  the  stroke  of  it,  like  that  of  an  iron  bar  upon  a 
bone,  her  bent  frame  shook  as  if  the  little  waves  of  terror 
that  rushed  through  her  soul  were  actualized  into  physical 
ones  that  surged  over  her  body,  and  a  scream  came  into 
her  throat,  and  the  first  sound  of  it  escaped  her. 

But  she  cut  it  short  as  if  with  a  knife  at  her  neck, 
perhaps  in  fear  of  herself  hearing  it.  Dropping  her  hands 
from  the  whitened  terror  of  her  face  she  saw  again,  and 
at  its  high  utmost,  the  seeming  miracle  of  his  exquisite 
illuminated  figure.  And  even  right  here,  her  abrupt  brain 
reached  out  and  one  of  its  tentacles  touched  that  other 
matter  of  the  Prado :  Murillo  ?  For  all  its  cameo  classi- 
cism, pure  Greek  or  pure  Modern,  the  vision  before  her 
was  to  her  hallucinating  mind  a  thing  risen  from  some 
witches'  broth  of  the  black  art  of  Goya — the  necromantic 
spirit-flame  of  a  demoniac  Sabbath  soup. 

With  stark  features,  staring-eyed  and  open-lipped,  she 
met  his  beautiful  blazing  eyes  again,  for  one  hideous 
instant.  Then,  with  another  little  low  helpless  cry  she 
turned  and  rushed  out  of  the  cell. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

THE    UNTYING   OF    THE    ROPE 

IT  was  evening,  near  some  poppy-fields.  Once  more, 
evening,  as  she  struggled  toward  these  pretty  fields  across 
a  little  white  bridge.  She  did  not  know  that  they  were 
poppies ;  she  knew  only  that  beyond  them  a  hill,  green  as 
a  jewel  or  an  Irish  farm,  held  high  in  air  a  little  town, 
and  she  was  wondering  if  she  could  reach  it,  even  on  her 
hands  and  knees.  But  when  she  came  beside  the  fields  in 
the  growing  twilight,  she  halted  there,  held  by  a  sense  of 
mingled  fertility  and  peace  that  crept  to  her  from  the 
long  ranks  of  red  and  yellow  fading  with  the  dusk,  as  if 
the  drowsing  flowers  were  a  group  of  quiet,  understanding 
friends,  going  to  sleep  together  for  the  night.  She  wished 
she  were  their  friend,  and  might  sleep  with  them. 

"Friend,  are  you  a  stranger  in  this  town?  You  look 
very  tired!" 

The  woman  who  met  her  timid  gaze  seemed  to  be  read- 
ing all  of  her  pain  and  weariness,  and  none  whatever  of 
her  sin.  Her  voice  had  been  soft  and  sweet,  yet  with  a 
queer  ring,  like  the  touch  of  metal  or  the  poignant  seep 
of  a  bird's  tone.  Dulce  stood  spellbound,  unable  to 
answer  her,  and  the  woman  took  her  arm  without  further 
waiting  and  led  her  up  the  steep  highway  to  a  small  house 
poised  over  the  valley.  Within,  she  lighted  candles  and 
set  forth  supper  while  Dulce,  sunk  upon  a  chair,  wept  hot, 
slow  tears  that  she  could  not  seem  to  quell.  Looking 
about  at  last,  she  saw  in  one  corner  a  great  wire  cage, 
and  hopping  about  the  floor  and  bed  and  fluttering  about 
the  woman,  numerous  little  green  birds — trained  birds, 
Dulce  thought.  They  ate,  from  the  woman's  hand,  while 

33 


86  The  Great  Way 

she  and  Dulce  ate,  the  girl  in  silence,  the  woman  talking 
softly  of  the  little  town,  which  God,  she  said,  had  wonder- 
fully blessed — with  a  wonderful  priest,  who  was  good  to 
Christian,  beast  and  pagan ;  with  pretty,  happy  citizens, 
who  were  kind  to  strangers;  and  with  industry,  which 
made  it  well-to-do,  and  happy. 

"And  you,  little  friend?  You  are  a  wanderer?  You 
seek  a  home,  perhaps?" 

"Yes,"  said  Dulce,  "I  am  a  wanderer.  But  what  I 
seek  is  work.  Any  work  that  is  not  the  work  I  did,  which 
was — the  one  unforgivable  sin."  She  flushed  in  saying  it 
to  this  woman's  ears.  "If  not,"  she  added,  paling  hard 
upon  the  flush,  "the  sin  itself  against  the  Holy  Ghost." 

"Of  that,  dear,"  said  the  woman,  "either  the  sin  you 
meant  or  that  nameless  one,  you  must  not  talk,  or  even 
think,  until  you  are  rested,  and  your  mind  is  straight. 
That  is  the  one  great  way  for  minds  as  weary  as  yours — 
to  think  of  the  future,  not  of  the  past." 

Tears  sprang  to  Dulce's  eyes  again.  "The  prettiest 
word  in  our  whole  Spanish  tongue  scarcely  describes  you 
— Mi  Dio,  but  you  are  Simpatica !" 

"That  happens  to  be  my  name,  dear,"  said  the  woman, 
smiling. 

"Well,  well,  but  I  have  always  believed  in  words !"  ex- 
claimed Dulce.  "And  I  am  sure  that  when  I  can  tell  you 
of  myself,  you  will  be  able  to  help  me  in  what,  beyond 
work,  I  am  hunting  for.  Can  I  find  work,  and  then 
lodging,  here?" 

"Naturally,  for  the  present,  you  will  stay  with  me.  And 
your  name,  dear?" 

"Dulce." 

"And  you  deserve  it,  Dulce,"  said  the  woman,  softly. 
"To-morrow,  you  shall  talk  to  me  if  you  choose,  but  cer- 
tainly to  our  priest,  the  godliest  man  in  Spain.  Indeed, 
I  think  I  hear  his  footstep  now!" 

"I  am  afraid  of  priests!"  cried  Dulce,  in  terror. 

"Not  this  one,  dear!"  said  Simpatica,  and  she  ran  to 
the  door.  "Padre!  Oh,  Padre!" 


The  Untying  of  the  Rope  87 

"You  need  me,  daughter?"  said  a  sweet  kind  voice, 
and  the  priest  entered. 

"She  needs  you,  Padre !    Her  name  is  Dulce." 

"A  pretty  name,  a  pretty  face,  Simpatica.  Look  up, 
my  child.  No  matter  what  your  trouble,  you  need  not  be 
either  frightened  or  ashamed  with  us." 

Forcing  her  eyes  up,  Dulce  met  his  gaze,  and  some- 
thing seemed  to  lift  from  body,  mind,  and  soul ;  she  found 
herself  weeping  in  the  woman's  arms,  clinging  with  one 
small  hand  to  the  great  firm  fingers  of  the  portly  priest. 

"Give  me  something  to  do!"  she  sobbed.  "Something 
decent  to  do !" 

"My  child,"  said  the  gentle  father,  "you  are  very,  very 
tired.  But  you  shall  have  work  to  do,  when  you  are 
able.  Your  craving  for  it  shows  a  mind  quite  right  at 
bottom.  Good  night,  good  girl!" 

Sleep  came  upon  the  little  bright  birds  in  their  big 
bright  cage.  .  .  .  And  upon  Dulce,  in  the  great,  snowy 
bed,  whereby  Simpatica  stood  long  looking  down  at  the 
white,  lined,  lovely  face,  which  whispered  through  its 
troubled  dreams,  over  and  over :  "Something  to  do !  .  .  . 
Something  decent,  decent  to  do !"  .  .  .  And  after  a  time, 
it  came  upon  Simpatica,  beside  her  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  XIV 

MANDRAGORA 

SHE  dwelt  in  the  village,  in  the  hearth  of  an  old  woman 
whose  house  was  scarce  bigger  than  Dulce,  and  who 
gained  the  few  cents'  rent  by  stopping  with  a  larger 
friend  across  the  green.  And  day  by  day — inch  by  inch, 
if  thoughts  have  measurements — the  "trudge,  trudge, 
trudge"  faded  in  her  brain,  even  the  less  terrible  "scrub, 
scrub,  scrub"  ceased  its  pounding  in  her  turbulent  spirit, 
and  the  nobler  repetition,  "work,  work,  work"  began  to 
hum,  and  gradually  to  sing,  in  the  sore  mind:  work  in 
lace-making  .  .  .  work  in  the  vineyards,  where  few  women 
worked — women  occasionally,  or  occasional  women  .  .  . 
work  in  bottling  wine  ...  in  preserving  fruits  .  .  . 
work,  work,  work.  .  .  . 

First  of  all,  in  the  bright  morning  when  she  had  gone 
forth  with  Simpatica,  she  had  been  allowed  to  work  in 
the  poppy  fields,  helping  the  little  orphan-boys  who  grew 
flowers  for  market;  and  here  in  the  sunshine,  surrounded 
by  the  urgent,  serious  children,  she  felt  as  though  the 
little  white  bridge  in  the  valley  had  truly  led  her  into 
some  new  world.  Before  her  rose  the  hill,  tall  and 
peaked-looking  among  its  round  companions,  topped  by 
its  pretty  village  of  white  and  blue  and  green  and  pink, 
like  old  Cadiz  itself,  and  ribboned  from  the  bottom  upward 
by  its  twisting  yellow  highway.  It  was  a  fair,  fair  place 
in  which  to  work,  work,  work. 

From  the  beginning,  kind  peasant  eyes  and  lips  smiled 
at  her,  the  eyes  admiring  and  friendly,  the  lips  calling 
her  prettily  by  name. 

She  learned  to  rest  when  each  day's  work  was  done. 

88 


Mandrdgora  89 

She  learned  to  be  familiar.  She  learned  to  smile,  as  she 
was  smiled  at.  And  she  learned  something  else,  too. 

This  was  when  her  voice  had  been  found  out,  in  an 
unconscious  moment  of  reckless,  joyous  work.  And  she 
soon  thereafter  learned  to  sing  for  the  pleasure  of  the 
folk  .  .  .  and  later,  for  her  own  pleasure,  even  .  .  .  for 
it  taught  her  that  the  enormous  ache  at  the  bottom  of  her 
soul  thus  poured  itself  forth,  forgetting  itself  while  she 
sang.  .  .  .  The  vineyarders,  going  home  at  evening, 
would  call  to  her,  demanding  her  music  for  the  early 
night,  on  the  green  .  .  .  that  pretty,  lovely  green,  where, 
though  the  out-of-doors  was  certainly  bigger  than  the 
out-of-doors  of  crowded  Seville,  somehow,  too,  it  seemed 
easier  to  sing  prettily  in — as  if,  perhaps,  the  Murillo- 
like  golden  vaporoso  that  hung  over  this  little  hill-town 
and  gilded  the  air  all  the  way  between  it  and  the  dis- 
tantly perceptible  Pyrenees,  made  that  air  a  softer,  more 
gracious  piece  of  paper  to  write  sounds  upon.  .  .  . 

And  at  last,  one  late  afternoon,  with  the  roughly-gentle 
praising  peasant  voices  lingering  in  her  ears,  she  went 
of  her  own  accord  to  the  old  priest. 

She  found  him  surrounded  by  his  little  boys,  who  having 
finished  their  work  among  the  poppies,  were  come  to  his 
house  for  a  lesson  in  natural  history;  and  as  they 
scampered  away  at  his  bidding,  leaving  her  alone  with 
him,  her  courage  wavered,  and  her  face  turned  white  a 
little. 

"Padre,"  she  said  hastily,  yet  sitting,  in  obedience  to 
his  gesture,  in  his  own  great  chair,  "I  do  not  think  I 
should  call  this  confession,  though  little  by  little,  if  you 
will  allow  it,  I  will  confess  to  you.  But  may  I  do  it  in 
the  form  of — of  just  tcdkvng?" 

"My  dear,"  said  the  portly  old  father,  smiling  at  her 
with  his  kind,  grave  eyes,  "by  what  other  means  should 
true  confession  be?" 

Quick  gladness  coloured  Dulce's  cheeks  and  brightened 
her  dusky  eyes. 

"Father,  will  you  begin  with  a  favour  to  me?     There 


90  The  Great  Way 

are  some  verses  in  the  Bible  that  I  read  once,  long  ago. 
Padre,  would  you  read  them  to  me,  now?" 

"Yes,  my  dear.  But  can  you  tell  me  what  or  where 
they  are?'* 

"I  think  I  can.  Anyway,  Re  Solomon  said  them  in 
the  beginning  of  a  very  long  talk,  and  the  first  one  I  want 
mentions  a  honeycomb." 

The  priest  sought  out  a  large  volume,  and  with  a  little 
pucker  in  his  brows  turned  the  leaves  slowly.  Presently 
he  read : 

"  'My  son,  attend  to  my  wisdom,  and  incline  thine  ear 
to  my  prudence.  .  .  .  That  thou  mayest  keep  thoughts, 
and  thy  lips  may  preserve  instruction.  Mind  not  the  de- 
ceit of  a  woman.  .  .  .  For  the  lips  of  a  harlot — 

"That  is  it,  that  is  it!"  cried  Dulce  eagerly.  "Only, 
in  the  book  that  had  happened  my  way,  it  said  instead 
'strange  woman.'  Well,  both  expressions  apply  equally 
to  me,  whether  they  mean  the  same  thing  or  not.  Make 
me  the  favour  to  read  on,  Padre !" 

"  ' are  like  a  honeycomb  dropping,  and  her  throat 

is  smoother  than  oil.  .  .  .  But  her  end  is  bitter  as  worm- 
wood, and !  The  old  priest  hesitated. 

"Go  on,"  said  Dulce,  as  she  might  have  said  to  a 
dentist. 

"  ' sharp  as  a  twoedged  sword.  .  .  .  Her  feet  go 

down  into  death,  and  her  steps  go  in  as  far  as  hell.  .  .  . 
They  walk  not  by  the  path  of  life,  and  her  steps  are 
wandering  and  unaccountable.  .  .  .  Now,  therefore,  my 
son '  " 

"Thank  you,  Padre,  that  is  enough,"  said  Dulce.  "Now, 
that  is  myself,  as  you  would  easily  see  if  you  knew 
me.  The  'strange'  or  the  other,  terrible  word  in  your 
book,  is  perfectly  true.  And  the  lips  like  a  honeycomb, 
and  the  throat  smoother  than  oil,  mean  my  voice,  evi- 
dently. Then,  it  says  I  have  a  rather  cheerless  end,  does 
it  not?  Then,  the  'path  of  life'  is  exactly  what  I  always 
call  to  myself  'La  Gran  Via.'  But  my  steps  do  walk 
it,  and  the  book  /  had  did  not  contradict  that.  It  said 


Mandrdgora  91 

my  ways  were  movable,  though,  and  so  they  are,  for  I 
certainly  am  a  wanderer,  and  not  quite  accountable  just 
now,  just  as  it  says  right  here.  As  for  that  wormwood 
at  the  end,  perhaps  it  can  be  avoided,  if  I  not  only  behave 
myself,  as  I  am  trying  to  do  already,  but  find  out  how, 
which  I  am  seeking  to  find  out.  Religion  is  not  it,  nor 
merely  being  good.  There  is  something  else,  and  perhaps, 
when  you  know  me  better,  you  can  help  me  find  it." 

"You  are  a  strange  girl!'*  said  the  Padre;  then  bit  his 
lips. 

"That  is  just  what  I  told  you,"  said  Dulce,  "and  you 
have  not  hurt  my  feelings.  I  am  especially  strange  in 
regard  of  my  fondness  for  words,  and  besides  wanting 
to  hear  those  verses  again,  so  that  I  can  never  forget 
them,  I  had  another  purpose  in  coming  to  you  to-day — 
about  a  word.  Padre,  Simpatica,  who  loves  you  so 
dearly,  and  whom  I  as  dearly  love,  I  may  almost  say, 
knows  everything  about  me — everything  I  had  words  for. 
And  I  suppose  you  know  a  lot  of  it,  from  her.  Well,  I 
am  better  here — not  happier,  for  there  was  no  happiness 
to  start  on.  But  in  this  holy  little  town  of  yours,  with 
you  so  gentle  and  understanding  to  the  little  boys  and 
the  grown  people  and  everything  and  everyone,  I  feel  in 
a  way  that  I  have  only  to-day  found  a  word  for.  Your 
poppy-fields  put  it  into  my  head,  I  suppose.  It  is  *man- 
dragora.'  That  has  several  meanings — good  and  bad. 
Well,  every  word  touching  me  must  be  both,  I  guess — 
for  a  long  time  to  come,  anyway.  Now,  I  am  very 
honest,  so  I  have  come  to  you  about  it.  Will  you  let 
me,  knowing  me  for  what  I  am — or  was,  rather — stay 
here,  working  for  my  keep,  of  course,  but  as  if  I  were 
taking  mandragora?  The  poppy-fields,  Simpatica,  the 
kind  townsfolk,  who  enjoy  my  singing,  all  of  these  are 
like  a  drug  to  me,  that  I  think  will  quiet  my  pain  till 
I  can  think,  and  go  on  hunting.  Without  going  to  church, 
without  church  confession,  may  I  stay,  without  any  prom- 
ise to  you  that  I  will  be  a  Catholic  again — stay,  until  I 
see  clearly  ?" 


92  The  Great  Way 

The  priest  gently  took  her  hand  in  both  of  his  own 
great  hands. 

"My  child,  I  think  I  understand  you  partly.  Marriage 
is  one  preventive  of  grave  sins.  The  Church  is  another 
and  a  greater  one.  I  will  pray  that  the  Church  at  least 
will  win  your  heart.  Meanwhile,  dear  child,  take  your 
'mandragora'  to  that  heart's  content !  Go  wander  now, 
through  the  poppy-fields.  And  when  you  find  some  new 
pretty  word,  come  again,  my  dear!" 

The  evening  sunlight  slanted  on  the  quiet  fields  as  at 
the  priest's  welcome  bidding  she  wandered  through  them, 
and  then  on  into  the  shade  of  a  great  acacia  tree  beyond, 
where  rich  violets  grew,  thrilling  her  with  memories. 
"Methican  eyce !"  she  whispered  to  them  in  English,  bend- 
ing down  to  caress  them.  "You  are  Methican  eyce — my 
own,  my  own !" 

"Dulce!"  The  voice  was  so  soft  that  it  startled  her 
more  than  a  loud  one  would  have  done.  From  a  group 
of  climbing  vineyarders,  one  had  come  across  to  her  from 
the  highway. 

"Dulce,  we  are  left  alone.  May  I  talk  to  you  of  your 
singing?" 

He  was  a  youth  whose  soul,  if  one  Spaniard's  soul  can 
love  music  more  than  another's,  had  most  completely 
swayed  to  the  lilting  cadences  of  her  in  the  open  air  on 
the  village  green. 

"May  I,  Dulce?" 

"Of  course,  Gil." 

"It  is  an  angel's  voice,  Dulce!"  His  own  grew  low 
and  sudden.  "It  takes  me  to  heaven,  Dulce !  I  love  you !" 
His  swift  arm  was  around  her  waist  even  as  she  shrank 
back.  "I  love  you !  Be  my  wife,  Dulce !" 

"Gil!    Gil!    Let  me  go!     Gil,  for  God's  sake!" 

"I  cannot,  Dulce !  Tell  me  nothing,  but  that  you  will 
be  my  wife !  I  have  talked  to  the  padre,  and  to  Simpatica. 
I  know  all  that  they  know !  Nothing  matters,  Dulce ! 
They  bid  me  wait !  I  cannot  wait !" 

She  was  in  his  arms,  her  arms  tied,  powerless.     His 


Mandrdgora  93 

bronze  face  was  close  over  hers,  his  red  lips  kissed  her 
mouth.  .  .  .  And  again.  .  .  .  And  again. 

"Tell  me  you  will  be  my  wife,  my  own,  my  own!" 
She  was  struggling  frantically,  helplessly. 
"Let  me  go,  Gil !     You  torture  me,  torture  me  !'* 
"Dulce,  my  own,  tell  me  you  will  be  my  wife!" 
"Yes,  Gil !    Yes,  if  you  will  let  me  go  now!    Yes,  if  you 
will  come  to  me  to-morrow!" 

The  scarlet  lips  kissed  her  again,  passionately,  the 
tight  arms  released  her.  She  ran  wildly  to  Simpatica's 
house  and  burst  open  the  door. 

"Simpatica,  may  I  sleep  with  you  to-night?" 
"Yes,  Dulce,  yes!    What  is  the  matter,  dear?" 
"Nothing !     Nothing !    But  I  must  sleep  with  you !" 
And  as  on  that  first  night  when  Simpatica  had  found 
her  by  the  poppy-fields,  the  little  birds  at  last  slept  in  the 
corner,  and  Dulce  slept.     And  again  Simpatica  stood  by 
the  bed,   looking  down   at   the  lovely  face,   and  at   the 
strangely  troubled  lips,  that  now  murmured  through  the 
uneasy  sleep :    "Dawn,  by  the  Mediterranean.  .  .  .  Noon, 
where  nations  meet.  .  .  .  Night,  through  a  Moorish  win- 
dow. .  .  .  Evening,    by    the    poppy-fields.  .  .  .  Trudge. 
.  .  .  Scrub.  .  .  .  Work.  .  .  .  For  the  lips  of  a  strange 
woman.  .  .  .  Her  end  is  .  .  ." 

And  later,  Simpatica  slept  herself,  beside  her.  But 
when  she  waked,  the  strange  visitor  was  gone.  Nor  was 
she  found  in  her  own  house,  nor  anywhere  else  in  the  little 
town. 


CHAPTER  XV 

LA   GITANA 

"HOYE !" 

"Hoye!    Hoye!" 

"Ho-o-oy-e!"  .  .  .  "Ho-o-oy-e!"  .  .  .   "Ho-o-oy-e!" 

The  cry,  in  wild  musical  rhythm,  calling  and  answering, 
quickening,  went  through  the  moonlit  night,  forward  and 
backward  across  the  stirring  camp,  whose  flaring  bonfires 
lighted  crags  and  gulches,  wild  trees,  rough  stones.  The 
Pyrenees  massed  black  and  desolate  against  the  starry 
sky  toward  all  points  of  the  compass,  yet  here  in  their 
stony  heart  dwelt  song  and  laughter,  colour  of  fabric, 
grace  of  woman,  strength  of  man,  warmth  of  fire,  gracious 
smell  of  food  and  rich  taste  of  wine,  with  roof  of  sky  as 
dear  as  frescoed  ceiling,  floor  of  dirt  and  shard,  blanket- 
strewn,  as  precious  as  marble  or  carpeting;  walls  of  de- 
serted towering  rock,  dressed  with  moss  and  earth  and 
shrub,  as  fair  and  familiar  as  panelled  walls  of  home.  It 
was  home;  changeable  night  by  night,  yet  very  home, 
after  the  grave  panorama  of  the  day — home  with  gay 
company,  love,  life,  laughter,  card-games,  tears,  and  chil- 
dren. And  at  this  moment,  song. 

"Hoye !" 

"Hoye !" 

"Hoye!"  .  .  .  "Ho-o-oy-e!"  .  .  .  "Hoye!" 

One  figure,  by  a  fire  set  apart  in  a  chosen  niche  of 
smoothed  flint  over  the  gorge,  brewed  something  hot,  all 
alone.  She  was  childless*  or  else  her  children  fared 
nearer  the  fiery  centre.  She  hummed  by  herself,  content 
without  a  husband,  or  awaiting  one.  The  only  figure 
near  her,  less  shadowy  because  motionless,  was  also  a 
woman,  seated  in  silence  on  a  rotting  trunk  near  by. 

94 


La  Gitana  95 

"Who  are  you?"  aslced  the  gypsy  suddenly,  in  sur- 
prise. She  had  come  nearer  the  silent  woman  and  in  a 
streak  of  moonlight,  seen  her  face.  "I  thought  you  one  of 
us,  but  are  you  so?" 

The  figure  made  no  reply,  and  the  gitana  shook  her 
shoulder — good-humouredly  enough,  and  asking:  "When 
did  we  pick  you  up,  say?" 

The  taciturn  figure  still  vouchsafed  no  answer,  and 
when  the  gypsy  had  come  in  front  of  her,  and  bending, 
peered  closely  at  her  countenance,  a  new  expression  swiftly 
aged  her  own  ageless  face  and  she  muttered  queer  words, 
in  a  rapid  cadence,  staring  the  woman  keenly  in  the  eyes. 

"Now,  girl,  speak  up !    Are  you  alive  at  all  ?" 

"Yes,  yes,  I  am  alive!    Holy  God,  I  am  alive!" 

"Follow  me." 

Stiffly  the  figure  rose  and  followed  her  the  few  steps 
to  the  fire. 

"Give  me  your  hand,  girl — here,  close  to  the  light." 

She  lifted  the  cold  palm  and  held  it,  by  its  wrist,  close 
to  the  blaze. 

"Well,  well,  what  I  see  there!  Behind  you — you  may 
well  say  'Holy  God!'  And  ahead  of  you — great  name  of 
Egypt,  'Holy  God'  again !" 

A  shiver  went  through  the  stone  of  the  statue. 

"Yet — girl,  girl,  but  there  is  esperanza  there!" 

"Hope?  Hope?"  Now  a  different  tremor  came  through 
the  dead  wretch,  as  though  a  spring  had  stirred  a  paste 
virgin  into  motion. 

"Yes,  girl,  written  from  ai  to  ah,  with  essay  and  erray 
on  the  way,  all  made  up  of  little  crosses  of  misery!" 

As  she  spoke  the  hand  was  wrenched  away  between 
her  fingers  and  the  girl  recoiled  with  a  low  cry:  "You 
have  burned  me !" 

"Well,  well,  girl,  I  had  to  rouse  you  somehow!  Come, 
we  will  mend  it  now,  and  when  all  is  done,  your  blood 
will  be  coursing.  A  little  pain  of  body  is  a  sponge  for 
pain  of  mind!" 

She  drew  her  towards  her  little  oblong  black  tent,  a 


96  The  Great  Way 

geometrical  blot  more  sable  than  the  rock  itself  against 
the  moon-greened  and  fire-ruddied  sky,  and  leaving  her 
before  the  breeze-stirred  opening,  stooped  through,  and 
reappeared  with  rag  and  oil. 

"Hold  that!"  She  poured  the  oil.  "Hold  that!"  She 
wound  the  rag.  Her  voice,  without  touch  of  harshness, 
was  yet  sharp  and  short.  "Now  lift  up  your  arms.  Keep 
them  out  straight!" 

With  little  throat-sounds  of  hurt  and  effort,  the  girl 
obeyed,  standing  like  some  weird  figurine  of  the  rock, 
flickeringly  lit. 

"In  little,"  muttered  the  gitana,  "she  is  like  the  huge 
grotesques  that  crown  the  Sacred  Mountain!" 

And  leaving  her  carven  thus  with  the  small  moan  of 
life  in  her  stone,  she  went  briefly  to  the  fire,  to  return  with 
a  china  cup,  filled  with  hot  liquid  from  her  iron  pot. 

"Drink,  girl!"  And  slowly,  painfully,  the  statue 
drank. 

"Can  you  eat  soon,  think  you?"  asked  the  gypsy. 

"I  think  so,"  whispered  the  stone  figure. 

"That  is  well.     Speech  will  come  after  that." 

She  went  about  the  fire,  stirring,  preparing,  and  the 
girl's  figure  sank  down,  steadying  itself  with  its  uninjured 
hand  by  the  tent-flap,  and  still  clinging  to  this,  slowly 
stretched  its  limbs. 

"Were  you  sitting  on  that  log  before  we  came?"  asked 
the  gitana. 

"Yes." 

"How  long?" 

"I  do  not  know." 

"You  heard  and  saw  us  come  and  pitch  the  camp,  and 
light  the  fires,  and  knowing  us  for  gypsies,  neither  ran 
away  nor  joined  us?" 

"I  thought  it  was  hell,  perhaps.     I  did  not  know." 

"Why  hell?"  asked  the  gypsy  good-humouredly ;  but 
with  a  prompt  purpose  of  soothing  that  was  spiritually 
softer  than  mere  good  humour. 


La  Gitana  97 

"Well,  I  had  lately  heard  quite  a  lot  about  hell,"  said 
the  figurine. 

"Well,  well,  we  shall  eat  soon,"  said  the  gitana.  She 
stirred  the  fire  and  food  again,  glancing  once  and  often 
at  the  silent  girl,  who  was  gradually  silent  no  longer,  for 
in  the  fire's  warmth  and  the  faster  creeping  of  her  blood 
her  voice,  unsounding  first,  then  a  small  hum,  then  actual 
words,  took  up  the  continuing  fitful  music  of  the 
camp : 

"Hoye!  .  .  .  Hoye!  .  .  .  Ho-o-oy-e!  .  .  .  Ho-o-oy-e!" 

It  fled  above  the  settlement  sweet  and  lonely  as  the 
moaning  laughter  of  a  swooping  loon  fleeing  homeward 
among  the  black  crags,  or  from  one  water  to  another  in 
their  chasm-deeps. 

"You  were  quick  to  catch  that  sound !"  said  the  gypsy 
across  her  work. 

"I  can  sing  like  an  angel,"  answered  the  girl.  "A  devil 
or  something  told  me  so  in  the  woods  the  other  night.  I 
did  not  see  him,  but  it  was  a  man-devil.  I  heard  his  voice 
distinctly." 

"Well,  well,  it  is  quite  likely,"  said  the  gitana.  "Luck- 
ily, you  are  with  gypsies  now,  and  devils  do  not  come  near 
us.  So  you  will  sleep  in  peace  to-night,  at  least.  Now, 
let  us  eat." 

They  ate  from  tin  bowls,  with  large  spoons,  and  life 
came  more  and  more  into  the  girl,  and  the  pain  of  her 
numb  body  grew  less  and  less.  The  singing  had  died  down, 
but  words  and  laughter  in  the  camp  continued. 

"Let  us  talk,"  said  the  gitana,  setting  aside  the  bowls. 
"Come,  sit  with  me  near  the  light  and  we  will  try  to  see 
the  future.  Is  your  hand  well?  I  will  not  burn  you 
again." 

"It  is  quite  well.     I  am  not  afraid  of  you !" 

"Ah!"  said  the  gypsy,  with  a  crisp,  practical  timbre 
of  satisfaction.  "That  is  well,  for  I  tell  you  you  need 
not  be.  There  are  bad  gypsies,  but  are  there  not  some 
bad  folk  who  stay  at  home?  Though  some  of  the  unkind 
things  may  be  true,  there  is  a  lot  of  nonsense  said  about 


98  The  Great  Way 

us.  Some  people  do  not  even  like  to  touch  us,  of  these,  a 
few  saying  to  justify  themselves  that  we  do  not  like  to  be 
touched,  just  because  long  ago,  yes,  centuries  back,  there 
was  in  Little  Asia  a  folk  of  soothsayers,  serpent-charmers, 
called  Athinganoi,  meaning  Touch-Me-Not.  But  /  am  no 
Touch-Me-Not,  for  I,  girl,  am  of  those  who  know — yes, 
know,  if  word  from  father  to  son  and  son's  daughter  to 
daughter  means  anything — that  our  people  were,  ancf 
therefore  in  soul  now  are,  Egyptians,  as  all  of  us,  Spanish, 
French,  Bohemian,  or  what-not,  are  called  in  contempt. 
As  for  me,  I  am  for  generations  of  the  forty  thousand 
Spanish,  but  before  that,  I  and  mine  were  Egyptian,  I 
say,  and  Egyptian  I  proudly  enjoy  to  be  called — yes, 
whether  in  despising  tone  or  no !" 

The  proud  Egyptian  deftly,  gently  unbound  the  girl's 
hand,  seated  her  by  the  fire,  and  put  an  arm  supportingly 
around  her  waist.  At  this,  the  girl  looked  anxiously  into 
her  face. 

"Your  name  is  not  Simpatica,  perhaps?" 

"No.  Mercedes.  Half  the  girls  in  Spain  are  named 
that,  I  admit,  but  with  me,  it  is  a  proud  name,  from  my 
line.  Still,  I  am  not  ashamed  of  its  vulgar  meaning  of 
Charities.  In  our  case,  there  was  a  purposeful  reason; 
and  in  any  case,  they  have  their  place  in  life." 

"I  am  fond  of  words  and  meanings,"  said  the  girl.  "I 
never  thought  before  of  the  name  Mercedes  meaning  the 
word  mercedes.  I  must  remember  that.  And  what  were 
those  words  you  said  to  me  at  first — when  I  was  sitting  on 
the  log?" 

"Hokus-pokus  words,  girl.  They  were  no  spell — more 
than  to  make  you  think  so." 

The  large  anxious  eyes  grew  unhappy,  disappointed. 

"Then  my  hand — what  you  said — Hope — that  was  false 
too?" 

"No.  No,  though  I  suppose  I  would  have  said  it  any- 
way. We  will  look  further  presently.  Think,  girl !  While 
you  have  flesh  left  on  you  that  can  hurt  when  it  burns, 


La  Gitana  99 

there  is  also  hope — no  ?  But  there  is  much  written  in  your 
hand,  too." 

"In  your  own  name,  that  is  true — Mercedes?  It  is  not 
one  of  your  'charities'  to  tell  me  so  ?" 

"It  is  true.     In  my  own  name,  I  swear  it !" 

"Thanks!  Thanks  to  Holy  God!"  And  the  girl's 
head  fell  to  the  gypsy's  shoulder.  "Friend,  friend,  I  begin 
to  remember!" 

She  was  weeping. 

The  gypsy  held  her  close,  letting  her  sob  quietly, 
unrestrainedly. 

"It  is  said  of  us,"  she  spoke  on  in  a  matter-of-fact, 
soothing  voice,  "that  we  were  of  the  seed  of  Canaan,  and 
that  we  were  scattered  all  over  the  earth,  and  served  as 
slaves  of  slaves.  But  again,  that  is  a  tale  of  Asia,  while 
as  to  us  Egyptians,  it  is  said  that  our  wandering  was  sent 
upon  us  because  our  kind  showed  no  charity  to  Joseph  and 
Mary  when  they  sought  refuge  in  Egypt.  It  may  be 
true.  It  may  not.  And  there  lies  the  purposeful  reason 
of  my  name — it  was  in  devout  pride  against  that  very 
accusation  that  my  line  chose  it  and  favoured  it.  True 
or  no,  we  are  baptized — the  whole  generality  of  us — in 
the  Christian  faith.  How  long,  girl,  have  you  been  in 
the  mountains?" 

"I  do  not  know.    Many  nights,  I  think." 

"Without  food?" 

"Sometimes  without." 

"Why?" 

"A  man  asked  me  to  marry  him." 

"That  is  well  worth  running  from  sometimes.  In  yout 
case,  why?" 

"You  will  not  understand  me." 

"I  will  understand  you.  I  am  a  gypsy.  I  understand 
much  of  you  already." 

"I — I  am  eighteen.  Since  I  was  sixteen,  I  have  been 
bad  for  money." 

"And  will  not  be  again — nor  even  marry?" 

"And  wtti  not !    That  is  it !    That  is  it !" 


100  The  Great  Way 

"Since  how  long?" 

"I  am  not  sure.     Two  months,  I  think." 

Into  the  gitana's  eyes  came  a  great  light  of  pity.  She 
made  no  answer  for  a  moment,  but  patted  her  hand,  and 
presently  she  looked  straight  and  long  into  her  eyes  and 
said: 

"Do  not  forget  that  word  *hope.'  I  meant  it.  Your 
mind  is  clearer  now.  Take  it  in.  I  am  a  visionary,  and 
I  see  more  and  more  as  we  sit  together  here.  Of  all  the 
words  written  thus  far  on  your  soul,  that  one  leads  you 
farthest.  And  it  is  far!" 

"Thank  God !"  cried  the  trembling  girl.  "Thank  God ! 
I  would  go  mad  else !  I  think  that  I  have  been  already 
mad!  Was  I  mad  when  you  found  me  here  on  that  log 
to-night?" 

"With  hunger,  child.  And  with — with  pain,  sad,  sad 
pain!" 

She  drew  her  closer,  tenderly,  and  let  one  of  her  brown 
hands  press  gently,  shieldingly,  against  the  erratically 
beating  heart. 

"But,"  she  said,  starting,  "there  is  a  hard  lump  there !" 

"There  is  a  hard  lump  inside  it,"  said  the  girl,  bitterly. 
"There  has  been  this  long  while !" 

"I  do  not  mean  that,"  said  the  gitana.  "You  wear 
something  over  it!"  And  her  fingers  had  begun  to  trem- 
ble. 

The  girl  drew  a  little  away  from  her,  and  her  own 
hand,  white  in  the  mingling  moonlight  and  firelight,  went 
sharply  up  against  the  heart  they  talked  of. 

"Ah,"  she  cried,  and  there  was  a  sobbing  ring  that 
was  of  both  ecstasy  and  anguish  in  the  suddenly  passion- 
ate voice,  "there  is  the  weight  of  centuries  upon  it !  In- 
deed, neither  am  I  a  Touch-Me-Not,  for  your  fingers  have 
rested  upon  the  only  part  of  me  that  has  never  been 
bought  or  sold!" 

"But  I  tell  you  I  do  not  mean  your  heart,  girl !"  cried 
the  gypsy  excitedly.  "I  mean  the  thing  that  you  love 


La  Gitana  101 

enough  to  wear  hidden  against  a  heart  that  loved  as  yours 
must  love !" 

Now  it  was  the  girl  that  started,  and  she  met  the  eyes 
of  old  Egypt  with  mingled  timidity  and  wonder. 

"So  do  /  mean  that !"  she  said.  "And  it  is  strange 
enough  that  your  fingers  should  have  trembled  like  my 
body  itself  instantly  they  felt  this  matter,  for  it  is  one 
that  has  to  do  with  Egypt,  and  old  Egypt — yes,  if,  as 
you  say,  word  from  father  to  son  and  son's  daughter  to 
daughter  means  anything,  Egypt  of  at  least  a  thousand 
years  before  your  line  showed  charities,  or  failed  to  show 
them,  to  Joseph  and  the  Virgin !" 

"What  is  your  meaning,  girl?"  And  the  gypsy's  voice 
trembled  now,  unconsciously  as  the  brown  hands  in  their 
instinctive  reach  toward  the  girl's  bosom.  "You  will 
show  it  me,  this  thing?" 

"Yes,"  answered  the  girl,  "for  you  have  been  good  to 
me — ah,  how  good! — and  besides,  this  talk  of  Egypt 
makes  it  right — as  right  as  it  is  strange !  For  it  is  almost 
beyond  strange  that  you  should  have  trembled  so  instantly 
at  the  feel  of  this,  and  knowing  nothing  of  it — indeed, 
perhaps  you  truly  have  divination,  as  you  say !  Well, 
believe  it  or  not,  I  have  my  family's  word,  and  they  were 
harsh  as  to  matters  of  truth,  take  my  word !  I  am  not  of 
a  bad  Spanish  line,  myself,  and  long  ago,  there  were 
personages  in  it.  Well,  some  great  Spaniard  did  a  favour 
to  the  Egyptian  Government — whether  it  was  before  or 
after  any  reason  for  hurt  feelings  over  Gibraltar,  anyway 
he  did  it — some  matter  of  some  kind  of  charities  ...  a 
word  again!  .  .  .  To  repay  him,  Egypt  delayed,  in  his 
honour,  a  festival,  till  he  could  get  there.  It  had  been 
hunting,  that  Government,  hunting,  hunting  for  a  certain 
tomb  in  the  catacombs,  with  the  mummy  of  a  Rameses 
princess  in  it.  She  was  of  the  house  of  Rameses  the  First, 
founder  of  the  Nineteenth  Dynasty,  whatever  that  means 
— for  I  have  a  clever  memory  for  the  little  history  I  have 
been  told,  besides  this  being  a  special  family  matter.  Well, 
the  opening  of  the  tomb  was  made  in  this  man's  presence, 


102  The  Great  Way 

and  it  was  all  exact,  and  there  she  was.  And  because 
she  had  died  a  virgin,  she  had  been  dedicated  to  the 
goddess  Astarte,  and  her  mummy  wound  around  with 
Astarte  beads — little  beads  of  turtoise,  and  of  glass,  I 
understand,  and  of  some  kind  of  mud  or  something.  Now, 
these  were  given  to  this  specially  honoured  guest.  And 
later,  although  he  so  prized  them,  indeed,  because  he  so 
prized  them,  he  gave  them  to  a  friend  who  had  done  him 
some  priceless  favour.  Think  what  a  gift !  But,  you 
see,  it  was  for  a  favour  of  the  soul.  And  by  a  third  such 
gift,  it  came*  into  my  family,  and  then,  to  me,  skipping 
my  parents,  for  it  was  my  grandmother  said  7  should  have 
it.  My  grandmother  loved  me  and — and  believed  in  me! 
Well,  since — since  I  have  told  you  I  have  been  bad  for 
money,  can  you  think  what  this,  this  thing  means  to  me 
— this  part  of  me,  for  the  immense  meaning  of  it  makes  it 
a  part  of  me — the  only  material  part  of  me  that  has  never 
been  bought  or  sold?" 

And  she  fetched  something  out  of  her  bosom,  clutched 
preciously  in  one  hand,  and  with  the  other  lifted  a  cord 
from  around  her  neck. 

As  the  trembling,  almost  panting  gypsy  leaned  nearer 
with  uplifted  shaking  fingers,  the  girl  opened  her  palm 
and  on  it  was  a  diminutive  bag,  arduously  hand-sewn, 
made  of  soft,  fine  balbriggan,  and  stained  with  dull  brown 
spots. 

"I  used  to  wear  them  around  my  neck,"  she  said,  "but 
they  are  strung  only  on  a  thin  thread,  and  I  was  afraid 
for  them,  and  lately  made  this  beautiful  little  case  for 
them,  you  see!" 

The  beautiful  little  case  was  part  of  a  man's  under- 
shirt. The  brown  spots  had  once  been  red. 

She  opened  it,  and  drew  forth  the  things  that  for  at 
least  three  thousand  years  had  been  innocent  of  money. 

Fragilely  their  infinitesimal  weight  sped  them  down- 
ward and  poised  them  between  her  finger-tips  and  the 
quivering  finger-tips  of  the  gypsy,  and  in  the  flare  of  the 
firelight  displayed  their  intricate  beauty  of  colour,  vast 


La  Gitana  103 

age,  and  significance.  They  were  little  tubular  beads. 
Their  whole  length  was  several  feet.  One  would  be  a 
half-inch  in  length,  another  more,  another  very,  very 
small  indeed.  There  were  perhaps  a  hundred  of  them,, 
perhaps  eighty:  they  were  so  fragmentary,  so  many  were 
broken,  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  count  them. 
Some  were  of  opaque  rich  glass,  some  were  of  pottery, 
some  were  of  turquoises  hollowed  out.  They  were  blue, 
and  another  blue,  and  green  blue.  Though  age  dwelt 
seemingly  with  every  one,  and  mellowness  of  colour,  there- 
fore, dominated  their  effect,  the  sheen  and  splendid  glaze- 
like  polish  of  the  glasses  and  turquoises  presented  by  the 
fire-flare  gave  hues  of  blue  accentuated  thrillingly :  pea- 
cock-blue, robin's-egg  blue,  electric  blue.  Some  tones  were 
so  deep  that  only  their  vivid  shine  and  vitality  kept  them, 
from  nearing  lapis ;  and  the  greens  buried  but  not  hidden 
in  the  resplendent  tones  would  have  suggested  grass,  so 
poignant  were  they,  but  that  they  had  a  higher,  a  more 
brilliant  cry.  And  these  colours  were  set  out,  and  inter- 
rupted, and  involved  by  the  pottery  beads,  which  were 
softly  dull,  and  faded,  from  their  likely  original  intention 
of  conforming  with  the  rest,  to  delicately  sensitive  tones 
of  Nile,  and  of  forthright  brown. 

"They  are  different  in  the  daytime,"  said  the  girl.  "In 
the  sunlight,  they  are  both  more  beautiful,  and  less.  It 
seems  almost  like  magic.  I  cannot  explain.  They  simply 
are  different." 

"Life  is  magic,  and  life  is  different  day  and  night," 
ssid  the  gitana.  She  spoke  simply.  Yet  it  was  with  a 
little  laughing  pant  that  made  the  girl  look  startled  at 
her,  for  suddenly  the  gypsy  seemed  old,  old,  ages  old,  old 
even,  in  her  suggestion,  as  the  Astarte  beads  that  had 
been  unwound  after  centuries  and  centuries  of  burial  from 
the  varnished  earthenware  of  the  virginal  Princess 
Rameses.  Gypsy  women  age  quickly ;  but  this  one  seemed 
to  the  gazing  girl  to  have  done  all  of  her  disproportionate 
surviving  of  piled-up  time  in  a  few  moments.  Her  face 
was  exquisitely,  spiritually  ancient  as  it  rose  there  from 


104  The  Great  Way 

her  suddenly  conspicuous  snowy  neck-cloth,  with  which 
her  fine  whiteness  of  unconsciously  shown  teeth  took  part 
against  the  darkness,  noticeable  as  the  lustre  of  her  black 
eyes  as  they  met  and  re-met  the  dark  ones  of  the  girl 
across  the  frail  blue  and  green  lines  of  colours,  that, 
so  glintingly,  delicately  pendant  between  them,  were  saved 
from  a  complete  droop  downward  by  her  awe-shaken,  lov- 
ing upheld  finger-tips. 

"Devla !  Devla !"  she  was  saying — the  odd  Romany 
word  for  God,  repeating  it  and  repeating  it  again. 
"Devla !  Ah,  girl,  girl,  but  this  is  strangely  wonderful ! 
We  will  see  them  together  in  the  daylight.  But  for 
now,  put  them  by!  Their  different  beauties  by  sun  and 
moon  are  not  of  moment.  What  is  of  moment  is  their 
meaning  to  you!  What  I  said  of  hope  I  may  say  now 
again,  and  ten  times  over  again !  How  could  you  ever 
have  lost  it,  you  who  can  think  and  feel  as  you  think  and 
feel  about  a  thing  like  this?  What  I  discerned  in  your 
hand  I  discern  now  in  your  soul!  With  the  mere  possi- 
bility of  such  an  emotion  as  the  one  you  have  for  this,  you 
will  go  far,  far,  Devla  knows  how  far!  Where  did  you 
get  such  feelings?  Consecration — what  a  vast  idea  it 
is!" 

"Ah!"  ejaculated  the  girl,  starting  again.  "What  an 
idea,  what  a  word!  Consecration!  I  never  thought  of 
that  before.  I  will  think  of  it  always  now!" 

"But  put  them  by,"  repeated  the  gitana,  "and  then, 
at  once,  yes,  while  I  am  thus  stirred,  then  for  your 
hand!  Smart  as  we  gypsies  are  at  cards,  they  are  not 
for  your  sort,  and  I  admit  it;  and  for  that  matter,  we 
are  far  more  adept  at  palmistry.  Our  power  in  it  goes 
beyond  our  own  knowledge  and  reasoning!  .  .  .  Ah!" 

The  little  cry  was  at  the  vanishing  of  the  lovely  old 
colours.  The  girl's  trembling  fingers  had  returned  the 
beads  to  the  little  balbriggan  bag,  the  bag  to  her  trem- 
bling bosom.  Her  lips  were  murmuring  almost  breath- 
lessly, "Consecration!  Consecration!" 

The  gitana  took  her  by  the  wrist  and  led  her  once 


La  Git  ana  105 

more  toward  the  rippling  entrance  of  the  sable-black  tent 
and  close  to  the  leaping  fire. 

"This  hand  of  yours  is  strange,  girl !" 

"That  I  know — it  fouls  everything  I  touch !" 
•  "The  past  we  both  know,"  said  the  gitana.  "Well, 
then,  the  future.  .  .  ."  She  stood  crouch-shouldered, 
brooding  over  it.  ...  "Strange  .  .  .  strange,  and  .  .  . 
terrible.  I  see  with  you  great  crowds  of  people — vast 
crowds — throngs — as  if,  for  instance,  you  were  at  the 
bull-ring.  .  .  .  But  you  are  not  of  the  crowd — strange, 
not  even  m  it.  You  are  alone  .  .  .  always  strangely,  in 
some  terrific  way,  alone  where  there  are  crowds.  I  was 
not  wrong  when  I  said  .  .  .  terrible.  I  will  be  truthful. 
...  I  will  tell  nothing  that  I  do  not  see — read  out  noth- 
ing that  is  not  in.  ...  These  lines  ...  all  mingling  to- 
gether, they  run  the  world  around,  and  back  again  .  .  . 
home,  forever  and  forever  back  where  you  started.  .  .  ." 

"Ah,  Holy  God !"  breathed  the  girl  sharply. 

"What  a  gran  via !  .  .  .  You  would  never  be  one  of 
us,  or  I  would  say  'Be  with  us.*  Your  roving  is  not  of 
our  sort.  What  life  is  there.  How  terrible !  .  .  .  Yet, 
with  it  all,  hope,  hope  .  .  .  for  you  travel  the  Great  Way 
verily  hand  m  hand  with  love,  though  always  so — alone! 
Just  now,  in  your  strange  roving,  you  seek  some- 
thing  " 

"Yes!"  cried  the  girl  eagerly.    "Yes!    Yes!" 

"What,  I  cannot  read." 

"Oh!"  cried  the  girl.  It  was  a  little  swift  moan  of 
disappointment. 

"My  gypsy  mind  stops  at  it.  But  seek,  girl,  seek! 
Never  cease  seeking " 

"Ah!"    It  was  a  sharp  ejaculation. 
—  for  you  find  it !" 

"A-a-ah !"  The  girl  had  cried  out  again,  with  a  long 
fluttering  breath. 

"There  it  lies  in  your  palm— it  cannot  escape  you. 
Not  if  you  seek  it.  It  awaits  you.  You  could  escape  it, 
and  your  hand  would  alter.  But  even  so,  it  would  always 


106  The  Great  Way 

await  you.  It  grows  up  soon,  soon,  before  your  eyes, 
your  palm  now  says,  like — like  a  great — a  great  pyramid 
— yes,  a  pyramid  like  the  Great  Pyramids  of  my  fore- 
fathers* Egypt !" 

"Pyramid!"  cried  the  excited  girl.  "Pyramid!  I  said 
they  might  fall  some  day !  This  night,  you  say — my  hand 
says — one  is  growing  up — for  me!  'Pyramid'!  Again  I 
say,  what  a  word,  what  a  word !" 

"Yes,"  exclaimed  the  gitana,  "and  the  thing  you  seek 
is  something  both  as  great  and  as — simple.  It  is  some- 
thing that  is  everywhere  about  you,  and  that  is  in  yourself, 
inside  of  you!  Ah,  girl,  if  your  hand  but  bade  me,  you 
should  stay  with  us,  and  find  your  bodily  peace  in  gypsy 
manner — meaning  three  things,  the  gypsy  Trinity,  which 
is  all  a  gypsy  needs:  Nature,  Nature,  Nature,  just  as  a 
singer's  only  three  needs  are  Voice,  Voice,  Voice.  But  if  I 
turned  you  from  the  seeking  of  your  own  need,  bidding 
your  will-power  alter  your  hand,  as  I,  a  very  gitana, 
have  admitted  could  be,  I  should  do  nothing,  you,  should 
do  nothing,  but  retard  your  fate — no  utmost  thing  could 
go  beyond  that  and  alter  it.  And  fate — your  fate — is 
standing  right  here  with  you  and  me  to-night  .  .  .  not  a 
bodily  presence,  yet  right  here  with  us,  either  right  yonder 
against  the  black  rock,  or  else  in  there,  behind  us !"  And 
her  arm  swept  excitedly  toward  her  inky  little  canvas 
home.  "It  makes  my  vision  strong  and  clear,  and  I  see 
that  pyramid  that  you  seek,  and  I  see  you  climbing  it, 
watched  by  seas  of  people — deserts  of  people.  And 
though  I  see  you  climbing  to  many  other  great  heights, 
like  mountain  heights,  though  I  see  you  desolate,  terrible, 
peaked,  like  the  mountains,  and  among  the  mountains, 
against  the  stars,  and  as  solitary,  first,  first  it  is  that 
pyramid  that  you  must  seek  and  find.  Perhaps  it  does  not 
exist  yet.  When  you  have  learned  its  nature,  from  your 
own  soul,  you  may  have  to  build  it !  Hope,  and  strength 
when  strength  returns  to  you,  will  enable  you !  It  is  well 
that  your  gran  via  led  you  here,  like  the  vagrants  rumour 
accuses  us  of  joining  unto  ourselves  whenever  we  can  to 


La  Gitana  107 

aggrandize  our  numbers.  To-night,  you  shall  sleep  with 
me — deeply,  and  close  to  me,  as  if  you  were  lately  young, 
and  I  your  mother.  From  clean  mind  to  clean  mind 
there  is  a  medicine  in  the  touch  of  flesh  and  flesh.  And 
while  your  hand  bids,  stay  with  us.  But  your  own  way 
lies  in  cities.  That  pyramid  of  yours  is  no  out-of-doors 
gypsy  thing.  We  are  journeying  down  to  the  Sierra 
Nevada.  You  shall  leave  us  at  the  first  great  city  on  the 
way." 

"I  thank  you,  and  I  thank  God,"  cried  Dulce,  "for 
whatever  little  time  I  may  stay  with  you !" 

"A  little  time  indeed,  girl,"  said  the  gitana,  "for  the 
first  great  city  calls  you,  and  to-morrow  we  move  on 
toward  Barcelona." 


CHAPTER  XVI 

PLAZA  DE  TOROS 

A  WOMAN  sat  at  the  bull-ring,  alone  in  the  crowd.  It 
was  in  the  Neuva  Plaza,  the  New  Place  of  Bulls,  in  the 
suburb  Hostafranchs,  the  big  circus  of  red  brick  crown- 
ing its  little  hill  so  prettily  feathered  with  green  young 
locusts — and  within,  all  Barcelona  that  could  mass  into 
space  for  some  seventeen  thousand  two-legged  animals  to 
watch  the  coloured  death  of  a  few  four-legged  ones. 

This  woman  was  dark-eyed,  dark-haired;  but  still  no 
Spaniard. 

And  she  was  alive  with  interest  like  a  native,  speak" 
ing  now  and  then  to  those  about  her  with  ease  in  the 
Spanish  tongue;  yet  puzzled  if  replies  were  in  Catalan, 
and  in  need  of  gesture  in  answer  to  her  free  Castilian. 

"You  are  French,  no,  senora?"  asked  a  man  at  her 
side,  and  his  brows  went  up  most  politely  when  she  shook 
her  head.  "English?" 

"No,  senor.     American." 

"Ah,  American  !     I  have  a  cousin  in  Buenos  Aires !" 

"I  am  not  from  South  America,  senor.  I  am  from  the 
Estados  Unidos." 

"Ah!  And  where  would  that  be,  senora?  In  Aus- 
tralia?" 

"No,  no,  friend.     I  am  from  Nueva  York." 

"Ah,  so?  Nueva  York!  Now  I  know!  Nueva  York  is 
very  tall,  is  it  not?" 

"Yes,  very  tall  indeed.     Is  that  Chiquito  now?" 

"Yes,  yes !  Your  pretty  eyes  are  quicker  than  a  Span- 
iard's, senora !  That  is  Little  Chico  !" 

And  the  roar  breaks. 

108 


Plaza  de  Toros  109 

She  watched  the  red-wet  game  with  eager  interest — • 
tingling  to  its  music  and  its  loud  thrilling  noise  of  throats, 
following  its  run  and  rush  and  jumping  flash  of  colours 
with  eyes  that  flashed  as  swiftly.  Yet  these  swift  eyes, 
that  had  been  so  politely  referred  to  by  the  Spaniard,  had 
in  them  no  game-lust,  no  brutality.  The  fervour  with 
which  they  absorbed  this  grace  of  danger-conquering  art 
was  the  avid  keenness  of  one  who  by  nature,  by  instinct, 
seeks  and  studies  the  corner  things  of  life — the  corner 
things  that  in  assimilation  make  possible  the  queer  term 
"experience." 

"There  are  good  bull-fights  in  Nueva  York,  seiiora?" 

"No,  senor,  no  hai  nada.    There,  we  think  them  cruel." 

"Cruel?  Well,  yes,  perhaps — if  one  thinks  of  it.  It  is 
hard  for  the  horses.  But  it  is  very  pretty." 

"Yes,  it  is  very  pretty." 

She  watched — the  bright-hued  figures,  red,  pink,  yellow, 
blue,  green,  gold,  silver ;  spangled,  glittering ;  with  their 
flutter  of  gaudy  cloaks,  their  running,  their  escaping,  their 
thrusting  of  striped  banderillas;  the  whole  crossed,  like  a 
kaleidoscope  with  a  crack  in  it,  by  the  sudden  mad  bellow- 
ing rush  of  hulking  brown  or  black  as  a  bull  plunged 
further  toward  his  waiting  death. 

But  once,  from  chance,  she  looked  at  one  of  the 
thronged  two-legged.  Afterward  she  looked  again;  and 
then,  frequently. 

It  was  a  woman  near  by,  whose  face,  a  moment  at  a 
time,  then  longer,  tore  the  American's  keen  eyes  from  the 
fight  and  at  last  engrossed  them — a  young  Spanish 
woman,  alone  like  herself— in  itself  strange,  for  a  young 
Spanish  woman — whose  gaze  was  riveted  upon  the  great 
spectacle,  yet  whose  whole  countenance,  albeit  she  rose 
or  sat  to  see  according  to  the  crowd,  seemed  unalive, 
expressionless. 

A  bull  died,  and  another,  and  another.  A  fourth,  and 
with  it  the  American's  fascinated  absorption.  Cruel  to 
very  tragedy  in  its  bright  accoutrement  of  colours  and 
sunlight,  yet  it  paled  for  her  beside  the  tragedy  hidden 


110  The  Great  Way 

from  her,  all  but  the  fact  of  it,  by  this  girl's  pale  face, 
which  seemed  to  her  like  some  creator's  painting  of  a  soul's 
mystery.  A  fifth  bull  died. 

Between  the  American  woman  and  the  Spanish  girl  the 
wild  mob  was  standing,  pulled  to  its  Spanish  feet  by 
Spanish  sentiment,  raucously  cheering,  madly  stamping, 
hurling  hats  and  canes  and  kisses  to  Chiquito  as  he  made 
his  bowing  pasear  around  the  ring.  It  was  only  a  month 
since  Fuentes  had  been  himself  hurt,  instead  of  his  bull! 
What  a  pity  to-day,  then — accidents  are  so  rare,  and  so 
exciting!  No!  Shame!  Yes!  No! 

Was  the  girl  fearful  for  Chiquito,  thought  the  Amer- 
ican— could  that  be  it?  Women  were  said  to  have  lost 
their  reason  through  this  fighter.  But  if  her  case  were 
of  that  sort,  she  would  be  shrilly  crying,  throwing  caresses, 
displaying  her  mania  proudly  to  the  mob ;  and  the  woman, 
lifting  herself  by  a  man's  elbow  and  craning,  saw  that  she 
was  not. 

The  throng  settled  down  again  upon  the  grey  stone 
tiers.  And  she  watched  the  girl  quite  constantly  now, 
scarcely  sparing  glances  to  the  remainder  of  the  fight. 
She  saw  the  same  unwavering  eyes  upon  every  movement, 
the  same  unlighted  face.  .  .  .  The  sixth  bull  died. 

The  afternoon's  deaths  and  joy  were  over.  The  vast 
crowd  poured  out,  to  the  jingle  of  the  huge,  beautiful, 
richly  caparisoned  horses  that  hooked  and  dragged  forth 
from  the  arena  the  dilapidated  carcasses  of  their  worthless 
brethren  that  had  died  in  the  last  fight. 

And  as  their  dead  victor,  the  bull,  was  dragged  tune- 
fully after  them  by  the  neck,  two  women,  unnoticed  save 
that  one  was  noticed  by  the  other,  were  alone  with  the 
blood  that  seeped  into  the  sawdust  in  the  gradual  twilight 
of  the  great  deserted  shell. 

"Is  there  anything  that  I  can  do  to  help  you?" 

The  girl  started,  for  the  voice  had  come  abruptly, 
from  behind  her,  and  before  answering  she  gazed  long 
and  thoughtfully  at  the  woman  so  suddenly  close  to  her, 
so  inexplicably  standing  in  the  dusk  on  the  stone  tier  above 


Plaza  de  Toros  111 

her.  The  figure  was  returning  her  gaze  with  the  same 
curious  quality  of  mind  and  look  that,  before  she  noticed 
the  girl,  she  had  given  to  the  bull-fight. 

"I  did  not  mean  to  frighten  you.  I  spoke  to  you  to 
ask  if  I  could  help  you." 

At  this  the  girl  found  her  voice. 

"Excuse  me,  sefiora!  I  am  slow-witted  lately!  To 
answer  your  question,  I  do  not  know  whether  you  can  help 
me  or  not." 

"So  you  are  in  trouble?"  said  the  woman. 

"Yes,  sefiora,  though  in  somewhat  less  than  I  was  in, 
still  in  great  trouble." 

"Will  you  tell  me  of  it?" 

"Thank  you,"  said  Dulce.  "I  will  tell  you,  senora, 
with  pleasure.  And  briefly,  too,  so  that  you  can  know 
quickly  whether  you  still  wish  to  help  me.  First,  then, 
I  have  been  bad,  very  bad,  and  been  so  for  a  long  time. 
Two  whole  years,  I  think.  And  for  money — understand 
that.  So  much  for  whether  you  really  wish  to  help  me. 
And  in  the  second  place,  wihich  concerns  my  second 
trouble,  I  have  been  lately  mad,  I  think.  Anyway,  my 
wits  fell  apart,  a  while  back.  Then  a  woman  helped  me — 
a  gypsy.  You  are  the  third  to  do  that.  No,  the  fourth 
or  so,  for  a  nun — two  nuns  I  guess — had  been  kind, 
though  less  kind.  It  is  all  very  strange.  Will  you  make 
me  the  favour  to  tell  me  why  you  spoke  to  me?" 

"Because  you  sat  here  so  dully  after  the  fight  was 
over.  And  because  I  had  been  watching  you  long  before 
that.  Why  did  you  sit  here  in  that  way?" 

"I  do  not  know — quite,"  said  Dulce.  "My  wits  are 
still  thick,  I  guess,  though  they  are  better.  I — I  am 
trying  to  find  out  something.  I  cannot  put  it  in  words, 
and  that  is  the  trouble,  for  if  I  could,  I  either  would  not 
have  to  ask,  or  would  probably  find  that  the  first  person 
I  met  could  explain  it  to  me — this  thing  that  I  am  trying 
to  find  out.  The  bull-fight  has  something  of  it.  Even  the 
gypsy  could  not  tell  me  what  it  was.  But  at  least  she 
was  sure  that  my  way — my  Gran  Via — lay  in  great  cities. 


112  The  Great  Way 

Well,  Barcelona  is  something  of  a  city,  perhaps  a  great 
one  after  its  own  fashion,  and  so  I  came  here  from  the 
caravan.  The  gypsy  said  that  what  I  seek  has  to  do  with 
great  crowds.  And  that  is  why  I  came  to  the  fight.  In 
spite  of  terrible  memories  that  sat  waiting  here  for  me 
in  this  arena.  It  was  those  memories  that  made  me  sit 
here  so  stupidly,  I  guess.  But  however  that  may  be,  there 
was  fate  in  it,  you  see.  Because  even  if  you  left  me  this 
second,  and  I  never  saw  you  again  on  account  of  what  I 
have  told  you  of  my  character,  still  it  has  had  fate  in  it, 
for  you  have  pounded  home  to  me  that  women  are  kind  to 
women." 

"I  have  no  intention  of  'leaving  you  this  second.'  And 
do  not  call  it  my  kindness.  Call  it  my  curiosity.  And 
whatever  you  choose  to  call  it,  I  do  wish  to  help  you.  Are, 
you  poor?" 

"Yes,"  said  Dulce,  "but  not  penniless  yet." 

"Did  you  intend  to  work?" 

"Yes,  as  soon  as  I  could  after  to-day." 

"At  what?" 

"I  do  not  know.  Anything  decent  except  coal-heaving, 
and  not  that  only  for  personal  reasons.  Work  is  scarce 
here  for  a  girl  like  me.  I  had  hoped  never  to  see  Bar- 
celona again — till  t^ie  gitana  told  me  what  she  did." 

"Would  you  be  my  maid?"  asked  the  American. 

Dulce  stared  at  her  incredulously. 

"You  actually  mean  that,  not  knowing  me?  Or  rather, 
knowing  me  for  what  I  am,  as  I  have  spoken  myself  to 
you?" 

"Yes,  I  mean  just  that.  I  am  an  American,  so  put 
it,  as  you  Spaniards  do,  to  my  American  queerness,  if 
you  like.  I  seldom  travel  about  with  a  maid.  A  maid 
in  travelling  is  a  nuisance.  But  I  really  need  one  for  my 
stay  in  Paris.  There,  a  woman  does  not  quite  like  to  be 
quite  alone.  I  go  to  Paris  to-morrow." 

"  '/  go  to  Paris  to-morrow'!"  cried  Dulce,  her  hands 
unconsciously  lifting  to  her  heart  with  her  staring  repeti- 


Plaza  de  Toros  113 

tion  of  the  words.  "Dio  mio,  but  there  is  fate  in 
this!" 

"I  like  you,"  said  the  American's  quiet  voice.  "Sitting 
here  as  if  you  were  a  fixed  study  for  some  kind  of  an 
artist,  and  yet  unaware  of  it,  you  have  interested  me,  I 
would  like  to  know  your  story,  and  to  help  you.  But  first 
of  all,  I  need  a  good  maid  for  Paris  and  I  detest  French- 
women— as  maids.  'Detest'  is  a  thoughtless  word.  I 
mean  something  politer — and  worse.  Simply,  they  are 
lady-maids,  not  ladies  '-maids.  Remember  that,  when  the 
time  comes  for  you  to  choose  one  for  yourself — which  it 
very  likely  will,  for  I  can  see  you  are  diestra,  which  we 
call  in  English  'clever.'  What  you  do  not  know,  you 
will  learn  quickly.  Will  you  go?" 

Dulce  was  trembling.  "Holy  God,  but  there  is  fate  in 
it!  I  am  mad  on  the  subject  of  words,  and  that  word 
'diestra,'  'clevairr,'  is  one  that  I  have  forever  used  about 
myself !  There  is  fate  in  words  !" 

"In  this  one,"  said  the  American,  smiling,  "this  diestra, 
you  Spaniards  have  a  second  meaning,  that  of  'right 
hand,'  the  same  as  your  mano  derecha.  Such  things,  we 
poor  Americans  learn  in  our  conventional,  terribly  cor- 
rect lessons  in  Spanish,  or  French,  or — well,  we  would  in 
Hebrew  too,  I  suppose;  and  they  stay  in  our  minds,  in- 
stead of  enough  grammar.  About  'diestra,*  you  would 
have  to  be  my  right  hand,  you  see.  The  fate  in  it,  there- 
fore, might  be  a  hard  one !" 

Dulce  was  still  trembling,  and  more  than  ever. 

"Hard  or  not,  senora,  there  is  fate  in  this !  For  one 
thing,  this  fact  that  you  hunt  for  meanings  in  words,  as  I 
do!" 

"You  go  then?" 

"Yes." 

They  went  from  the  dusking  arena,  out  into  the  great 
way  of  the  Street  of  the  Cortes.  It  was  the  day's  twilit 
hour  in  which  Dulce  had  joyously  traversed  it  on  her  long 
way  home  from  Mont  Juich  that  seventh  day,  on  which 
God  had  restlessly  unmade  her  world.  Fair  lights  gleamed 


114  The  Great  Way 

along  it  through  the  great  bounty  of  the  planeta  trees. 
The  plaza  at  the  foot  of  the  arena  was  deserted.  No 
carriage  was  to  be  had.  The  American  would  not  board 
a  tram.  They  walked. 

At  last  the  big  Plaza  of  the  Cataluna  glittered  ahead, 
its  glow  shining  sidewise  into  the  Ramblas,  its  square 
brilliance  intensifying  its  own  deep-green  drooping  palms 
and  hard,  bright  yellow  dirt.  They  came  into  it  crossing 
the  head  of  the  lovely  Ramblas. 

"I  stop  at  the  Continental,"  said  the  lady. 

"The  Continental !"  breathed  Dulce,  shrinking  back. 

They  entered  it,  and  went  up  to  the  woman's  rooms. 


CHAPTER  XVH 

AN  ENGLISH   WORD 

HERE  they  dined,  the  woman  for  a  time  as  silent  as  the 
girl — easing  her  with  silence;  then,  equally  helping  her 
by  casual  speech. 

"How  do  you  wish  me  to  dress  ?"  asked  Dulce  suddenly, 
during  dessert. 

The  answer  was  prompt. 

"To  start  with,  as  my  companion,  not  my  maid.  For 
travelling,  it  is  as  well,  I  think.  When  we  are  settled  in 
Paris,  differently,  perhaps.  We  will  see." 

"I  have  some  very  handsome  bits  of  this  and  that 
in  a  box  near-by,"  said  Dulce.  "I  am  rapid,  and  what  we 
have  called  clever,  at  things  of  the  sort;  and  if  you  care 
to  send  a  porter  as  far  as  the  Calle  del  Carmen  for  it,  you 
might  approve  of  something  I  could  slap  together.  As  I 
am,  I  look  like  the  devil — or  to  be  exact,  a  tramp." 

"I  had  thought,"  said  the  woman,  "that  you  might  wear 
something  of  mine.  But  of  course  you  shall  have  your 
box." 

"Let  us  try  the  box  first,"  said  Dulce.  "There  are 
some  things  that  I  want  to  give  you  out  of  it,  anyway." 

The  woman  looked  at  her  in  surprise,  but  checked  her 
curiosity  in  silence.  A  porter  was  dispatched  to  the 
address  in  the  Carmen,  and  pending  the  box  Dulce  stirred 
about  the  lady's  wardrobe. 

"Your  trunks  are  how  many?  Four,  That  is  not  as 
crazy  as  most  Americans.  And  by  the  way,  if  my  talk 
is  disrespectful  forgive  it  for  the  present.  I  have  never 
been  a  maid  before,  you  see,  and  to-night  I  am  very,  very 
much  excited." 

115 


116  The  Great  Way 

"Talk  just  as  you  choose,"  said  the  American.  "It 
will  not  offend  me." 

"May  I  be  damned  before  I  hurt  your  feelings,  though," 
said  Dulce. 

She  was  packing  deftly,  tenderly  yet  quickly. 

**What  underclothes  you  have!  And  I  had  always 
thought  that  Americans  were  economical  and  tawdry 
about  such  matters !  Some  liar  told  me  so !  You  must 
be  wealthy.  You  have  beautiful,  expensive  things,  but  no 
faintest  idea  how  to  dress.  The  Queen  of  Spain  spends  a 
hundred  and  fifty  thousand  francs  a  year  on  her  clothes. 
Poor  thing,  she  is  English,  and  German  before  that,  and 
has  to.  You  see,  I  am  particular  to  say  francs,  not 
pesetas,  because  she.  buys  them  in  Paris.  I  will  make  you 
look  more  a  queen  on  next  to  nothing,  later — Paris,  or 
anywhere  else." 

When  the  box  arrived  she  turned  to  it  immediately, 
as  if  to  hasten  a  dreaded  task ;  but  she  paused,  as  she  was 
lifting  the  cover,  to  say  abruptly : 

"By  the  way,  you  intended  to  pay  me  some  wages,  I 
suppose?" 

A  little  embarrassed  colour  came  into  the  American's 
cheeks,  a  little  disappointment  into  her  eyes. 

"Of  course.  I  had  thought  we  would  discuss  it  later, 
that  is  all.  I  intended  to  give  you  exactly  what  you  con- 
sidered fair  and  right." 

"I  thought  so,"  said  Dulce.  "That  is  just  your  charac- 
ter. You  are  hopelessly  extravagant.  What  with  rail- 
road fares,  and  my  keep  in  hotels,  you  ought  to  have  me 
for  nothing,  with  perhaps  a  little  bit  over  to  indulge  my 
pride,  and  for  the  sake  of  business.  How  much  did  you 
pay  for  that  hat,  for  instance?" 

The  American's  eyes  were  struggling  with  a  smile. 

"A  hundred  francs,  I  think." 

"There  you  are,"  said  Dulce.  "It  was  never  worth 
fifty.  If  I  had  been  with  you,  the  shopman's  face  would 
have  been  well  slapped.  You  see,  living  in  Catalonia  here, 
even  we  southern  Spaniards  get  to  be  great  bargainers,  in 


An  English  Word  117 

self-defence.  Though  I  will  say  for  myself,  having  told 
you  the  worst  of  me  I  could,  that  in  my  own  terrible 
business  I  never  did,  not  once,  make  a  brawl  about  the 
money  part.  Something  inside  me,  stopped  me — abso- 
lutely. But  to  consider  what  would  become  of  you  in  the 
Tr — in  the  same  circumstances — of  course,  the  thought 
sounds  absurd,  because  at  your  age  you  never  could  start 
such  an  outrage,  quite  aside  from  the  positive  tornado  in 
your  mind  that  I  can  see  my  mere  thinking  aloud  has  writ- 
ten on  your  face.  Only,  what  you  said  to  me  to-day  about 
my  likely  enough  having  my  own  maid  some  day,  was  a 
very  deep,  true  thought,  whether  you  were  deep  about 
it  at  the  moment  or  not.  For  things  can  change  com- 
pletely about,  for  anybody — as  an  instance,  and  simply 
another  form  of  the  same  involved  matter,  a  man  might 
honourably  marry  you  and  take  every  cent  of  all  your 
money,  and  you  would  have  to  be  somebody's  maid.  Never 
mine,  even  for  the  sake  of  poetry,  because  after  what  you 
have  done  to-day  I  would  simply  give  you  the  maid-money 
to  live  on  till  you  could  sue  him  for  it  back,  and  hell 
take  pride,  and  him.  But  none  of  this  could  happen 
to-night,  or  to-morrow,  and  what  I  started  to  say  was, 
that  whatever  wages  you  meant  to  give  me,  you  must  lessen 
somewhat  as  a  matter  of  business,  for  I  intend  to  learn 
English  out  of  you,  which  is  not  your  fault.  For  in- 
stance, what  would  you  call  all  this — my  being  your  maid 
out  of  a  clear  sky,  and  going  to  Paris  with  you?  I  am 
morbid  on  the  subject  of  English,  on  account  of  a  love- 
matter  of  my  own,  and  I  want  to  know." 

"Why,  I  suppose,"  said  her  mistress  with  gentle  hesi- 
tation, "that  we  would  call  this  your  'instalment.5  I 
can  think  of  no  other  word  to  fit  exactly  what  I  think 
you  mean." 

"Thank  you,"  said  Dulce,  turning  back  to  the  box. 
"Instalment."  And  she  began  to  bring  forth  the  contents 
in  batches :  "Instalment."  "Instalment."  "Instalment." 
"Instalment,"  until  everything  was  piled  upon  the  floor; 
her  mistress  the  while  considering,  and  deciding  against, 


118  The  Great  Way 

any  interruption  of  her  earnest  study  by  reference  to  the 
word's  chance  concern  with  her  chance  action. 

As  her  servant  spread  forth  the  Manila  mantons,  the 
lady's  combined  silent  tenderness  and  amusement  were 
lost  in  an  ejaculation  of  delight. 

"They  are  for  you,"  said  Dulce.  "These,  and  those 
candlesticks,  are  what  I  spoke  of." 

"Mio  Dios,  girl!"  cried  the  American.     "You " 

"Do  not  offer  to  pay  for  them,"  said  Dulce  calmly. 
"Make  me  the  favour  not  to.  Dio  mio,  but  you  have  been 
good  to  me !  And  these  three,  anyway,  I  could  not  sell — 
nor  the  candlesticks.  They  were  in  my  family.  They  are 
very  valuable.  My  mother  and  father,  if  they  had  had 
the  pleasure  of  your  acquaintance,  would  probably  have 
told  you  I  stole  them.  But  that  would  have  been  a  lie. 
I  had  them  from  my  grandmother,  who  really  loved 
me." 

She  was  talking  against  the  woman's  protests,  and  fold- 
ing the  rich  fabrics  into  one  of  her  trunks. 

"There  is  no  way  out  of  it  you  see — I  have  no  trunk, 
so  that  even  what  does  stay  mine  must  go  into  your 
luggage.  While  as  to  the  meaning,  the  sentiment-angle, 
such  others  as  I  had,  that  I  could  sell,  I  did  sell,  and  was 
quick  about  it,  too.  I  had  had  them  from  the  junk- 
market  here.  Among  them,  even  one  that  I  had  planned 
should  become  dearest  of  all,  dearer  than  its  worth  that  I 
screeched  the  junk-market  out  of,  dearer  than  any  family 
or  anything  but — well,  thought  of  family,  and  all  from 
the  mere  touch  to  it  of — of  an  American  boot,  by  the 
way.  When  that  little  plan  failed,  it  happened  to  be 
midnight,  an  hour  when  the  junk-market  was  closed,  so, 
knowing  something  about  hunger  and  those  yonder  not 
to  be  done  for  that  way,  I  sold  them — with  it — to  the  old 
woman  who  runs  the  Carmen  house  I  lodged  in.  One 
must  be  practical — for  instance,  so  far  as  family  is  con- 
cerned, those  that  I  have  put  in  your  trunk  you  could  sell 
for  food,  and  no  second  thought  about  it.  My  family— 
a  sister,  and  a  rude  one,  in  Sevilla — and  yours,  are  con- 


An  English  Word  119 

tinents,  not  to  mention  drawing-rooms,  apart.  Make  me 
the  favour  to  think  as  I  do  about  them." 

The  American  woman's  voice  was  very  low,  though  clear, 
and  gentler  than  ever,  as  she  said: 

"It  will  be  decided  later." 

"It  is — settled,"  said  Dulce,  startling  the  woman  less 
with  her  decisiveness  than  with  her  grasp  and  intentional 
use  of  the  word  her  mistress  had  somewhat  arduously 
picked  from  her  Spanish  for  reference  to  their  stay  in 
Paris.  And  the  girl's  next  speech  made  another  surprising 
jump. 

"May  I  call  in  the  room-maid  for  a  purpose?" 

"Certainly." 

Across  the  bed  Dulce  placed  a  hat,  a  gown,  fresh  linen, 
from  the  pile;  and  into  her  mistress's  trunks  the  rest  of 
the  finer  linens.  All  the  remaining  gaudy  confusion  on  the 
floor  she  threw  back  into  the  box.  The  room-maid  had 
entered.  Dulce  turned  to  her. 

"Answer  me  this,  girl,  and  speak  truthfully.  You  are 
poor?" 

"Very,  senorita." 

"And  good  ?  Or  for  that  reason  bad  ?  Speak  truthfully 
again,  now!" 

The  girl  flushed,  speechless  from  either  surprise  or  anger 
or  from  both. 

"Well,  well,  your  face  answers,  clearly  enough,"  said 
Dulce.  "Now,  I  know  all  about  such  matters,  so  be  honest 
with  me,  and  do  your  part  of  a  bargain.  Take  out  that 
box,  and  everything  in  it  is  yours.  Quite  a  little  value 
is  inside  it,  and  for  your  sort,  more  than  a  little.  Take  it 
all;  and  in  return,  for  my  sake — for  my  sake,  I  tell  you 
— to  the  money  value  of  it  as  close  as  you  can  figure,  stay 
good  for  a  while.  You  understand  me.  I  can  see  that  you 
do.  Take  it?  and  mind  you  obey !" 

When  the  startled  maid  was  gone,  she  found  the  Amer- 
ican regarding  her  with  quizzical,  half-closed  eyes ;  yet 
eyes  that  had  none  of  the  languor  of  drooped  lids,  had 


120  The  Great  Way 

much  that  was  further-reaching  than  quizzical  in  their 
questioning  thoughtfulness. 

"You  are  a  strange  girl !"  she  said. 

"Very,"  said  Dulce.  "I  have  often  said  so  myself." 
And  she  added,  in  her  abrupt  manner:  "It  happens  to  be 
another  of  my  favourite  words  about  my  own  character. 
And  speaking  of  that,  what  would  be  your  word  in  English 
for  what  I  did  to  that  girl  just  now?  Or  by  means  of 
her,  rather?  You  saw  and  heard  what  I  did,  but  I  will 
explain  it  to  you  a  little,  and  perhaps  then  you  can 
tell  me  the  word.  I  paid  her,  you  see,  and  what  I  paid 
was  the  first  French  franc,  or  Methican  peso,  or  so,  of  a 
great  big  debt  that  I  have  to  pay.  Now,  what  would  you 
call  that?" 

The  American  pondered,  biting  her  lip  in  her  serious- 
ness of  thought,  for  she  knew  by  now  that  with  this  girl, 
at  this  striking  hour  of  her  strange  spirit,  words  were 
serious  matters,  deep  as  waters,  powerful  as  wines. 

"Why,  my  girl,"  she  said  at  last,  "strangely  enough  .it 
is  the  same  word  that  I  told  you  before — with  a  different 
meaning.  I  have  already  thought  of  this,  for  so  it  applied 
to  your  portions  of  things  as  you  piled  them  on  to  the) 
floor.  But  now,  concerned  especially  with  money,  it  is 
much  more  perfectly  to  the  point,  and  is  the  same  word 
exactly,  and  the  only  one  I  know  in  English  for  it — 'in- 
stalment' !" 

Dulce  stared  at  her  incredulously  for  a  moment,  then 
sat  down  almost  dazedly  on  the  edge  of  the  bed. 

"I  knew  there  was  a  lot  in  words,"  she  said.  "I  told 
you  there  was  fate  in  all  of  this !" 

In  the  bright  morning,  in  the  Estacion  de  Francia,  she 
trembled  so  violently  that  her  mistress  wondered;  and 
helped  her,  rather  than  received  her  help,  into  the  train. 
...  It  was  from  this  place,  probably  at  this  hour,  that 
he  had  gone  .  .  .  perhaps,  in  this  very  car.  .  .  . 

As  with  a  jolt  of  its  couplings  it  drew  from  the  yard 
her  heart,  too,  jolted;  but  she  looked  out  of  window  and 


An  English  Word  121 

with  the  motion,  and  the  softness  of  the  grey-damasked 
luxurious  compartment,  she  grew  gradually  calm. 

Away  from  the  sea,  past  the  giant  skeleton  of  the  new 
cathedral,  past  the  ruined  castle  back  of  Mataro,  on  away 
from  Mataro  itself,  on  away  from  Caldetas,  into  the  green 
and  yellow  hills,  the  long  train  ran  twisting,  twisting, 
twisting,  twisting;  but  with  its  iron  nose  forever  sniffing 
toward  Paris. 


CHAPTER  XVHI 

THE  WORLD'S  HEART 

THEY  had  understood  each  other's  name — Dulce,  Mrs. 
Rugg — and  in  some  part,  history,  by  the  time  they  were 
"settled"  in  Paris,  in  a  hotel  turned  just  off  the  Avenue 
de  1'Opera,  at  one  of  the  city's  unceasing  angles,  in  the 
rue  de  1'Echelle,  their  windows  gazing  down  to  the  Palais 
Royal  and  its  endless  traffic,  which  Dulce's  enthralled 
eyes  drank  up  in  fascinated  awe. 

"Settled"  was  the  lady's  term  for  their  domestication, 
in  its  own  English  now,  instead  of  roundabout  in  her  cas- 
tellano,  for  by  now  she  had  sensed  as  well  as  known  the 
girl's  avidity  for  foreign  words,  yet  was  still  to  be  ever 
and  anon  startled  by  the  swift  intuition  and  extraordinary 
memory  which,  she  found,  had  led  them  before  the  close 
of  a  week  into  a  grammarless  jargon  of  Spanish  and 
French  patterned  with  bold  grotesques  of  American  ver- 
nacular. 

As  to  their  understanding  of  the  two  names,  it  gave 
on  to  marked  differences  of  feeling.  Mrs.  Rugg  was 
pleased  with  Dulce's,  and  commented  prettily  that  she 
deserved  it.  * 

"That,"  said  Dulce,  "has  been  mentioned  before,"  and 
she  rambled  into  an  account  of  Simpatica,  and  thence 
into  other  reminiscences  of  the  holy  little  town  in  the  foot- 
hills so  near  the  Mountain  of  the  Grail;  and  in  turn  her 
mistress,  who  had  climbed  Montserrat,  told  Dulce  of  its 
wonderful  legend. 

"How  ignorant  I  am!"  exclaimed  Dulce.  "Now,  evi- 
dently of  all  things  in  my  own  country,  I  should  have  seen 
that!  Just  as  you  say  you  are  ashamed  to  know  the 

122 


The  World's  Heart  123 

bull-fight,  not  because  it  is  such  a  lot  of  blood,  but  because 
you  have  never  seen  Niagara  Falls,  which  is  such  an  un- 
common amount  of  water !" 

And  she  asked  innumerable  questions  about  everything 
else  that  even  approached  the  United  States. 

"I  do  not  say  'America,'  you  see.  I  am  not  so  stupid 
about  geography  as  the  man  at  the  bull-fight  that  you 
mentioned.  There  are  many  Spaniards  just  like  him,  who 
think  that  California  is  Manila,  and  Canada  Methico. 
You  can  scarcely  blame  them,  for  the  mere  shape  of  this 
world  is  confusing  to  a  vulgar  mind.  But  I  am  differ- 
ent. I  know  the  Estados  Unidos  when  I  hear  them 
talked  of!  And  if  Spaniards  may  believe  one-tenth  of 
what  they  do  hear  talked  of,  things  are  certainly  very 
different  over  there.  Society  things.  Marriages,  for  in- 
stance. We — I  mean  Spanish  aristocrats,  and  I  am  at 
least  a  fraction  of  one — think  your  customs  about  mar- 
riages very  free  and  shocking.  But  for  my  own  part,  I 
think  that  if  we  were  more  like  you  and  lovers  knew  a 
great  deal  about  each  other — I  mean  within  reason,  of 
course — before  they  got  married,  it  would  save  a  lot  of 
unhappiness  afterwards.  Americans  hate  our  strict  way, 
and  I  really  cannot  blame  them.  Let  me  tell  you,  for 
instance  .  .  ." 

Mrs.  Rugg  thought  herself  listening,  but  so  intent  had 
become  her  gently  studious  gaze  upon  the  girl's  features 
that  for  a  few  moments  she  realized  no  vocal  sense.  As 
if  there  were  indeed  some  active  virtue  in  the  white  witch- 
craft of  crystal-gazing,  and  her  maid's  dark  eyes  were 
crystals,  she  seemed  to  see  in  them  staidly  moving  figures 
of  young  girls  and  old  duennas,  duennas  no  poor  little 
family  of  little  Cadiz  could  afford,  and  it  was  with  a 
feeling  of  startlement  for  her  that  the  syncopation  of 
Dulce's  small  meandering  recital  was  ended  by  an  abrupt 
leap  of  the  girl's  speaking  mind  back  to  the  United 
States  again: 

"Now,  what  would  have  happened  in  such  a  case  in  the 
United  States,  Mrs. — Mrs.  Rr — r " 


124  The  Great  Way 

Despite  her  quick  gift  for  words,  she  had  great  diffi- 
culty with  Mrs.  Rugg's  harsh  name,  a  fact  which  in  this 
instance  rescued  the  American  from  the  difficulty  of  an 
answer.  Dulce's  sensitive  ear  could  not  quite  grasp  the 
two  g's,  and  written  out,  their  defiance  of  the  Spanish 
alphabet  overpowered  her  completely.  When  in  addition 
she  learned  the  name's  meaning,  she  became  more  dissat- 
isfied than  ever. 

"  'Rug* !"  she  exclaimed  in  Spanish.  "Who  ever  heard 
of  such  a  thing  for  a  pretty  woman?  You  should  be  a 
Turk!  Still,  it  is  part  and  parcel,  I  suppose,  with  your 
being  an  'Americana,'  which  means  a  jacket,  and  a  man's 
at  that — the  coat  of  his  business-suit.  I  suppose  the 
hideous  things  were  invented  in  your  country.  Well,  I 
admit  it  would  seem  odd  for  a  gentleman  to  wear  velvet 
trousers  and  a  sash  to  the  Bourse.  ...  I  had  no  such 
thought  when  I  suggested  a  plan  with  a  dreadful  lie  in  it 
about  the  Bourse  one  time.  .  .  .  And  I  admit,  too,  that  I 
have  seen  an  American  suit  that  I  loved  very  much,  and 
that  I  suffered  when  I  saw  the  coat  slashed  up.  .  .  .  But 
Rr— r— 

Finally,  she  abandoned  her  efforts  altogether,  and  called 
her  nothing  at  all,  until  several  days  later,  when  she  sud- 
denly christened  her  mistress  "Dona  Rina."  This  was 
upon  her  having  learned  that  Rina  was  Mrs.  Rugg's  first 
name. 

"I  have  been  trying  to  think  something  out,"  she  said. 
"  'Dona  Rina'  sounds  as  if  it  were  one  word,  some  espe- 
cially pretty  Spanish  name,  but  'Dona,'  of  course,  is  a 
title,  so  that  it  really  has  a  lot  of  respect  in  it." 

Mrs.  Rugg  smiled — as  the  American's  multiplying  inter- 
est in  her  curious  companion  doubtless  would  have  allowed 
her  to  smile  no  matter  what  address  she  had  adopted. 
This  interest  of  the  older  woman's  had  been  quickened 
by  one  detail  very  early  in  their  association — Dulce's 
prompt  estimate  of  her: 

"I  know  what  you  are — you  are   tediosa.     Ennuyte 


The  World's  Heart  125 

Bored.  No?"  And  the  shot  had  gone  appropriately 
home. 

"I  am  not  really,  Dulce.  With  my  own  circumstances, 
yes.  Not  with  things,  however.  I  am  interested,  inter- 
ested, interested.  In  you,  for  example." 

"I  understand  perfectly,"  Dulce  had  said.  "I  know, 
exactly  what  you  mean  by  'things.'  7  am  a  'thing,'  beyond 
doubt.  But  exactly  what  kind,  God  knows,  and  when  I 
find  out,  I  will  be  very  interesting  indeed.  Om  will  bet! — 
Did  that  make  sense?" 

She  said  this  with  a  seriousness  that  in  some  degree 
was  forever  with  her,  and  that  would  deepen,  for  long 
hours  together,  into  a  sombre  spirit  that  turned  the  Amer- 
ican's pleasure  in  her  to  positive  pain.  But  she  never  over- 
urged  her  confidence.  The  girl's  history  and  its  acute 
spiritual  significance  to  her  seeped  out  little  by  little — 
in  abrupt  small  philosophies  betraying  the  far  tangents 
of  her  brooding  mind,  and  in  long  passionate  silences  that 
in  idle  hours  would  come  upon  her  and  set  her  lips  tight 
and  darken  her  eyes  to  a  dull,  mystic  black. 

"I  wish  I  could  help  you,  Dulce,"  Mrs.  Rugg  would  say, 
coming  up  behind  her. 

"Perhaps  you  could,  Dona  Rina,  if  only  I  could  help 
myself  a  little  first.  I  think,  somehow,  that  I  will  under- 
stand presently.  Anyway,  the  gypsy  said  I  would,  and 
at  once  up  you  pop  like  a  Punch  and  Judy  show  and  fetch 
me  to  Paris.  So  doubtless  I  am  intended  to  find  here 
what  I  am  hunting  for.  There  is  fate  in  it.  I  think  you 
can  tell  me  a  lot,  as  soon  as  I  know  what  to  ask  you. 
The  trouble  is  there." 

"You  should  not  brood  so  much.  Shall  we  go  out, 
Dulce?" 

"Yes,"  and  Dulce  would  dress  them  both  for  the  street, 
herself  as  "companion"  still,  not  servant,  and  they  would 
fall  upon  the  shops. 

At  first,  despite  the  luring  regal  glitter  of  the  rue  de 
la  Paix  and  the  Parisian  uniquity  of  the  great  circling 
boulevards,  she  had  feared  the  streets,  suffused  with  a 


126  The  Great  Way 

dread  of  glimpsing,  even  of  meeting  face  to  face,  the 
sovereign  of  her  strange  thoughts.  But  as  the  intricate 
vastness  of  the  spider's-web  of  Paris  dawned  more  and 
more  upon  her  imagination,  she  lost,  gradually,  the  sense 
of  this  danger,  and  with  awakened  inquisitiveness  began 
to  involve  her  mistress  in  assaults  of  shopping  that  evolu- 
tionized  the  American  from  chrysalis  to  butterfly — one 
that  lit  fearfully  upon  its  purse  now  and  then,  only  to 
find  this  remarkably  undepleted. 

"You  are  a  marvel,  Dulce !" 

"I  told  you  I  would  be,  Dona  Rina.  You  are  as  pretty 
as  I  am,  now. — By  the  way,  is  that  offensive?" 

Mrs.  Rugg  laughed  and  coloured. 

"From  anyone  else,  it  would  be  tragic.  But  I  seem  to 
understand  the  things  you  say,  and  how  you  say  them. 
You  hurt  me  precisely  once,  and  I  was  not  offended,  really, 
then." 

**What  was  it — Dona?  I  will  punish  myself,  you  may 
be  sure !" 

"I  do  not  wish  you  to  punish  yourself.  It  was  that 
night  in  Barcelona.  You  said  I  had  no  faintest  idea  how 
to  dress.  It  hurt  because  it  was  true.  You  have  proven 
it  now,  and  repaired  it,  too." 

"I  must  be  more  careful  of  my  tongue,"  said  Dulce, 
reflectively.  "For  I  long,  Dona  Rina,  literally  long,  to 
be  a  lady — to  be  a  lady  in  every  possible  way.  And  I 
have  the  instincts,  I  think.  For  instance,  on  the  train 
.  .  .  when  that  wicked  old  merchant  with  the  wife  and 
babies  in  Stuttgart  insulted  us  at  Toulouse  and  tried  to 
stay  in  our  compartment.  Now,  knowing  me,  as  you  do, 
for  what  I  am — or  was,  rather — who  was  I  to  resent  it 
as  I  did?  One  would  naturally  suppose  that  I  would  have 
been  perfectly  vulgar  and  taken  it  as  a  matter  of  course, 
whereas  instead  I  was  absolutely  an  outraged  patrician, 
telling  him  he  would  roast  in  hell,  the  baboon.  Do  you 
remember?" 

"I  shall  never  forget !"  said  Mrs,  Rugg. 

Day  after  day,  they  would  drive — for  successive  hours, 


The  World's  Heart  127 

the  woman  intent  upon  the  girl's  masked  yet  graphic 
mind  as  it  absorbed  the  inexhaustible  panorama.  Dulce's 
lips  would  be  most  silent  when  her  eyes  most  spoke.  Mile 
upon  mile  she  would  sit  without  speech,  the  eyes  dreaming 
as  they  drank.  Once  she  said : 

"It  is  the  heart  of  the  world,  I  think." 

"You  have  a  touch  of  the  poeta  in  you,  Dulce." 

"I  have  indeed,  Dona  Rina.  You  have  no  idea  how 
much." 

Then  silence  again,  all  the  way  home;  that  brooding 
silence  with  the  lips  set,  the  dusky  eyes  far  off,  hot  with 
their  battle  of  seeking. 

To-day  mistress  and  maid  were  happily  aimless,  ram- 
bling like  Spaniards  from  shop  to  shop  in  the  Avenue  de 
1'Opera,  looking  rather  than  buying.  They  stopped  at 
the  window  of  a  music  shop. 

"  'Valse  Brune,'  "  said  Dulce,  reading  from  a  popular 
song-sheet.  "What  soft  words !  The  French  is  pretty,  is 
it  not?" 

"I  have  kept  telling  you  so,  Dulce.  Shall  we  buy  the 
song?  Do  you  read  music,  Dulce?" 

"No. — Yes. — I  do  not  know.  A  little,  when  I  have 
heard  a  thing.  Let  me  see.  .  .  ."  She  moved  on  a  step 
and  stood  before  a  copy  of  the  song  that  was  laid  open. 
"Why,  yes,  I  can !  And  do  you  know  what  this  is,  Dona 
Rina?  It  is  my  favourite  song,  the  Apache  waltz — the 
Cavalier  de  la  Luna !  And  I  always  thought  it  was  a 
Spanish  song!  We  call  it  sometimes  La  Apache." 

She  began  to  hum  it,  following  the  notes  with  her  eyes. 
But  suddenly,  inexplicably,  she  found  the  eyes  blind  with 
tears.  Mrs.  Rugg  pressed  her  arm  silently.  She  knew 
that  part  of  the  story.  And  they  walked  on. 

"There,"  said  Dulce  abruptly,  as  they  stood  on  what 
Mrs.  Rugg  termed  an  "isle  o'  safety,"  surrounded  by  the 
whirling  traffic  of  the  Place  de  1'Opera,  "there,  Dona  Rina, 
is  the  most  beautiful  building  in  the  world.  Little  as  I 
have  seen  of  the  world,  there  is  no  doubt  of  it.  It  is 
ravishing!"  And  she  nodded  toward  the  Opera. 


128  The  Great  Way 

"You  may  go  to  Rome  some  day,"  said  Mrs.  Rugg, 
"and  think  as  the  Romans  think  of  some  of  their  buildings. 
Still,  I  will  not  really  dispute  you."  Presently  they  were 
passing  round  the  side  of  it,  by  the  big  gilded  statue, 
and  Dulce,  in  her  inevitable  craving  for  new  words,  halted 
them  before  the  small  opera-poster. 

"  'Melba' !  What  a  lovely  word  !  That  is  absolute  music 
in  one  word.  Is  it  a  great  singer?" 

"The  greatest  in  the  world,  most  people  think.  Shall 
we  hear  her,  Dulce  ?" 

"Holy  God,  yes!"  And  they  hastened  to  a  ticket 
agency. 

"Now,  if  I  were  a  great  singer,"  said  Dulce  as  they 
came  out,  ."/  would  certainly  have  trouble  finding  a  name 
as  pretty  and  liquid  as  that  for  myself  .  .  .  Nellie 
Melba,"  and  she  lilted  the  two  words,  correctly,  and  with 
exquisite  tenderness.  "But  I  should  find  it  somehow.  .  .  . 
I  am  always  clever  at  such  matters." 

They  were  hesitating  on  the  sidewalk  in  the  sunshine, 
bereft  of  object,  and  once  more  stalled  by  the  whirlwind- 
whirlpool  of  traffic  sweeping  into  the  Place  from  the 
boulevards. 

"The  Ramblas  are  a  bit  like  them.  Suppose  we  go  to 
the  Luxembourg  Gardens,  Dona  Rina,  and  see  the  autumn 
flowers  again — Spain  has  flowers,  but  nothing  like  that 
intentional  luxury  at  the  Luxembourg !" 

The  American  had  fallen  into  a  habitual  recourse  to  her 
whimsical  leadership,  giving  her  a  loose  rein  of  caprice, 
which  in  Dulce's  hands  was  always  guided  by  some  earnest, 
unspoken  mood;  and  accordingly  they  wandered,  afoot, 
across  the  island  and  through  the  old  quarter  to  the 
Luxembourg,  and  in  among  the  luxurious  rows  of  thou- 
sands of  chrysanthemums  and  asters  and  geraniums. 

"What  a  city !"  breathed  Dulce.  "Just  look  at  all  this, 
that  everyone  can  see  without  even  the  asking !  How  they 
think,  here,  of  the  people!  Or,  is  it  the  people  that  does 
the  thinking?" 

"You  make  me  think,"  said  Mrs.  Rugg. 


The  World's  Heart  129 

"See,  it  is  already  closing  time,  Dona  Rina.  I  meant  to 
ask  you  something  here  in  the  gardens,  but  I  got  think- 
ing instead.  Suppose  we  go  down  into  the  little  garden 
on  the  cathedral  island,  and  watch  the  sunset.  We  will 
not  be  turned  out  of  that.  .  .  .  And  I  am  anxious  to  ask 
you  this  thing." 

So  they  walked  back,  and  half  across  the  Pont  Neuf 
onto  the  Cite,  and  Dulce  led  eagerly  down  through  the 
bridge  into  the  diminutive  Garden  of  the  Vert-Galant. 
They  found  themselves  alone  in  it  with  the  dimming  trees, 
the  great  glinting  breasts  of  the  Seine  gliding  by.  The 
great  heart  of  the  world  was  beating  beyond  them  and 
above  them  with  streams  of  traffic,  like  giant  corpuscles, 
rushing  through  its  arteries  in  the  dusk,  as  they  sat 
quietly  watching  the  last  lavender  streaks  of  sunset  and 
the  silver  reflections  of  the  bridge-lights  in  the  water. 

"May  I  ask  you  this  question,  Dona  Rina?" 

"Make  me  the  favour  to,  my  dear." 

Dulce  pressed  her  hand  at  this  first  word  of  spoken 
affection. 

"There  could  be  no  better  place  to  ask  it,  Dona  Rina. 
.  .  .  This  pretty  little  park,  here  at  the  very  point  of 
the  old  island  in  the  middle  of  this  wonderful  town,  seems 
to  me  to  be  the  very  heart  of  the  world's  heart  .  .  .  and 
what  I  wish  to  ask  you  is  this:  Dona  Rina,  what  is  the 
meaning  of  'Society'?  The  meaning  of  the  word?  Not 
fashion.  I  know  that  meaning.  And  not  a  certain  class 
of  people,  high  or  low  or  medium.  I  understand  that.  But 
just  Society?  The  word  itself,  with  a  capital,  say,  and 
no  'el'  or  'la'  or  'le'  or  'the'  in  front.  What  is  the 
signification  of  it?  I  use  a  long  word  there,  and  I  think 
I  do  correctly,  for  I  have  been  thinking  this  question  out 
for  a  long  time.  Since  even  before  I  knew  you.  What  is 
it,  Dona  Rina?" 

"I — I  will  try  to  answer  you,  Dulce,"  said  the  elder 
woman;  and  she  fell  silent,  hunting  for  words. 

"I  have  heard,"  Dulce  went  on,  "the  expression  'A  debt 
to  Society.'  Well,  I  can  understand  that,  so  far  as  the 


130  The  Great  Way 

debt  goes.  As  you  must  know,  I  owe  such  a  debt.  ...  A 
frightful  one.  ...  So  much  I  know  perfectly  well.  But 
what  M  this  thing,  Dona  Rina,  that  I  owe  it  to?" 

"It  is  a  hard,  hard  question,  Dulce."  Mrs.  Rugg's 
voice  was  low,  and  more  gentle  than  her  servant  had  ever 
heard  it  before,  and  with  a  touch  of  trouble  in  it.  "Dulce, 
I  too  have  a  story,  and  I  too  owe  a  debt,  thougli  the 
story  is  different,  and  therefore  my  debt,  I  suppose,  must 
be  different  too.  I  was  married,  you  know — for  certain 
little  dry  facts  about  me  you  naturally  do  know ;  and  my 
husband  is  alive,  which  is  quite  news  to  you.  I — I  kicked 
him  out,  Dulce,  and  to  kick  a  man  out  is  a  terrible  thing 
to  have  to  do.  ...  I  had  to.  .  .  .  Well,  that  tells  you 
nothing,  except  that  necessarily  it  means  some  dreadful 
chapters  in  my  life,  dreadful  teaching  chapters,  teaching 
unsuspected  things  of  oneself,  and  of  others ;  and  that 
therefore — thereby — I  probably  understand  something  of 
this  problem  of  yours,  and  of  your  effort  to  know  just 
what  it  is  you  owe,  and  what  you  owe  it  to,  and  just  how 
to  pay  it.  Society,  dear,  first  of  all,  is  people,  just 
people — and  what  you,  dear,  owe  to  'just  people'  I  can- 
not say.  It  is  too  big  and  personal  a  thing  for  me  to 
dare  to  put  my  hands  on — if  I  could.  But  what  everyone 
with  any  power,  any  power  and  any  brains  combined, 
owes  to  People,  or  Society,  is,  I  suppose,  what  we  call 
'the  greatest  good  to  the  greatest  number.'  Does  that 
convey  anything  to  you?  Does  that  help,  even  a  little, 
Dulce?" 

"Yes !"  cried  Dulce  gladly.  "Yes,  yes !  'The  greatest 
good  to  the  greatest  number!'  That  is  a  wonderful 
phrase !" 

"How  to  do  that  greatest  good,  Dulce,  I  do  not  know 
even  in  my  own  case.  Because,  I  guess,  I  have  lacked 
power,  lacked  even  direction  of  myself,  and  never  so  much 
as  struggled  to  know  what  was  right  for  me  to  do,  as  you 
are  struggling.  If  I  had,  I  might  be  of  some  value  to 
'Society*  now,  for  I  have  always  been  thirsty  for  knowl- 
edge— not  of  persons,  Dulce,  but  of  People.  See  how  we 


The  World's  Heart  131 

come  around  in  a  circle  to  that  word !  I  remember  when, 
I  was  a  small  girl  just  able  to  delve  in  books,  I  used 
to  wonder  and  wonder,  as  I  read  story  after  story,  'Why 
is  it  that  nobody  tells  stories  about  People?  About 
Peoples?'  And  such  stories — histories,  Dulce — have  been 
written.  Yet  books,  even  such  books,  have  never  held  the 
answer  to  my  own  problem.  For  to  me,  they  were  still 
just  stories,  fascinating  stories,  from  which  I  learned 
only  that  the  answer  was  somewhere  in  my  own  soul,  and 
nowhere  else.  And  there,  Dulce,  I  have  been  too  cowardly 
to  hunt.  .  .  .  You,  dear,  are  brave.  You  are  hunting* 
there — in  your  own  soul — nobly,  unafraid." 

Darkness,  full  darkness  spotted  only  with  golden  and 
silver  lights  like  strings  of  stars,  had  closed  in  upon  them 
as  they  sat  in  the  little  garden  between  the  coursing 
waters. 

"I  am  afraid,  but  I  have  got  to  hunt  there,*'  said  Dulce, 
simply. 

"Why,  Dulce?"  Mrs.  Rugg  asked  it  in  an  almost 
frightened  whisper. 

"Or  go  mad,"  said  Dulce,  as  if  she  had  not  heard 
her. 


CHAPTER  XIX 

THE  HOUSE  OF  THE  GREAT  VOICE 

THEY  went  early  to  the  Opera,  and  from  above  the  great 
stairway  looked  down  upon  it  and  the  arriving  crowds. 
Dulce's  eyes  were  wide  with  an  astonishment  that  turned 
gradually  to  silent  rapture  as  Dona  Rina  guided  her 
through  the  promenades.  She  feasted  on  the  painted 
walls,  the  gorgeous  ceilings.  She  insisted  upon  dragging 
Mrs.  Rugg  down  the  whole  great  stairway  again  .  .  .  and 
up  again  .  .  .  and  through  the  glittering  promenades 
again.  "I  have  never  seen  anything  so  lovely !  No,  even 
the  outside  did  not  hint  it !" 

At  last  she  consented  to  go  back  to  their  seats. 

"No,  you  must  sit  at  my  right  hand,  Dona  Rina — 
remember  you  said  I  was  to  be  your  'mano  derecha.'  Then 
I  can  get  at  the  back  of  your  neck  better  if  those  three 
hairs  flop  out  again.  Well,  well,  sitting  down  we  cer- 
tainly look  as  well  as  these  Frenchwomen,  anyhow.  Our 
gowns  are  pretty!  Do  you  remember  the  row  I  had  to 
make  them  cut  mine  low  enough?  And  that  was  not  on 
account  of  my  character,  Dona  Rina,  truly.  It  was 
purely  because  I  really  am  rather  lovely  in  that  direction, 
so  why  not?  Now,  being  all  ready  and  waiting  for  the 
curtain,  and  with  no  one  more  to  step  on  us — what  would 
you  call  that?  Would  you  call  that  'settled,'  too?" 

"Yes,"  said  Mrs.  Rugg,  emphatically,  "and  something 
else  is  'settled,  too' — that  you  are  going  to  stay  with  me 
for  the  rest  of  my  natural  life." 

"I  would  like  to,  Dona  Rina,"  said  Dulce  gravely. 
"But  how  can  one  tell?  The  only  thing  that  never  fails 
to  stay  with  you  straight  through  life  is  fate.  Fate  was 

132 


The  House  of  the  Great  Voice          138 

at  the  bull-fight.  Fate  may  be  here  at  the  opera  to- 
night." 

"Have  you  been  often  to  the  opera,  Dulce?" 

"Yes,  quite  often.  Once  at  Madrid,  with  the  man  who 
— but  I — told  you  all  that.  And  frequently  in  Barce- 
lona, at  the  Liceo." 

"You  have  heard  Boheme  before,  then?" 

"No,  never  Boheme.  Traviata,  and  Carmen — several 
times  Carmen.  And  quite  a  few  Italian  ones  besides 
Traviata.  Carmen  is  by  a  Frenchman,  is  it  not?  That 
is  very  strange.  It  is  strange,  to  begin  with,  that  we  have 
no  Spanish  operas.  For  we  are  a  musical  people,  right 
through  our  bones,  and  love  music,  I  think,  much  more 
than  these  French  appear  to.  Yet  we  write  no  great 
operas.  We  cannot  live  without  music  in  the  streets,  day 
and  night.  And  here,  there  is  no  street  music,  although 
they  wrote  Carmen.  If  they  can  do  that,  why  no  music 
in  the  streets?  Perhaps  they  love  flowers  more.  Paris 
seemed  very  hollow  and  empty  to  me,  till  I  realized  what 
the  trouble  was." 

The  opera  began. 

Dulce  listened,  instantly  and  continuously,  as  if  she 
were  a  dry  sponge,  and  the  sound  water.  Mrs.  Rugg  was 
more  intent  upon  Dulce  than  upon  the  music.  She  was 
watching  for  the  moment  when  the  girl  should  hear  the 
first  note  of  the  great  voice  that  was  coming.  And  sud- 
denly, Dulce  started  as  with  a  spiritual  shock. 

A  tremor  went  through  her.  Then  she  sat  back  like 
some  voluntary  statue,  soundless,  motionless.  .  .  . 

At  the  fall  of  the  curtain,  she  did  not  join  in  the 
thunder.  And  when  it  finally  died  away,  she  turned  briefly 
to  her  companion. 

"I — I  did  not  know  there  was  anything  in  the  world 
(ike  that !  I  did  not  know  that  the  whole  Gran  Via  ever 
gave  one  anything  like  that!  May  we  walk  in  the  cor- 
ridors till  the  next  act,  Dona  Rina,  and  look  at  the  beauti- 
ful stairway  again?  One  must  always  be  walking  in  one 


134  The  Great  Way 

way  or  another — Melba,  for  instance,  hunting  for  that! 
I — I  am  very  nervous." 

"Then  of  course  we  shall  walk,  dear." 

And  once  more  they  stood  at  a  point  giving  on  to  the 
famous  stairway,  in  a  corridor  filled  with  slowly  wander- 
ing crowds  to  whose  rich  glitter  Dulce  had  now  turned  her 
back,  for  she  was  gazing  down  upon  the  beautiful  ladder 
of  architecture  as  if  the  top  of  any  ascending  head  might 
be  covering  the  fate  she  had  talked  of. 

"Dona  Rina,"  she  murmured,  "you  have  called  me 
'poeta,'  and  as  a  'poeta,'  I  would  call  this,  I  think,  'The 
House  of  the  Great  Voice.' ' 

"Yes,  dear,"  answered  Mrs.  Rugg  gently.  "And,"  she 
added  swiftly,  "the  stairway  of  it  does  deserve  your 
eyes !" 

The  last  crisp  words  had  been  as  instinctive  as  they 
were  quick,  for  the  American,  as  if  through  the  very 
finger-tips  which  she  had  laid  upon  the  girl's  beautiful 
naked  shoulder,  had  felt  eyes  fastened  strangely  on  the 
white  shining  skin,  and  defensively,  defiantly,  Mrs.  Rugg 
was  seeking  those  eyes. 

When  they  met  hers,  they  seemed  to  her  to  be  of  a 
colour  that  was  almost  violet,  that  was  peculiarly  beauti- 
ful in  the  shadow  of  the  young  man's  heavy  yellow  hair; 
they  were  filled,  too,  with  a  conflicting  startlement  and 
doubt  that  made  them  pathetic,  and  it  was  with  an  almost 
personal  shudder  at  their  power  of  fascination  that  she 
launched  at  the  man,  in  one  long,  fierce,  daring  stare,  her 
whole  proud  heritage  of  American  womanhood,  her  whole 
passionate  protection  of  the  unconscious  girl  beneath  her 
fingers. 

His  face  flushed  to  a  deep  red.  For  one  instant  the 
eyes  seemed  to  plead  with  her — to  let  him  more  fully  see 
the  woman  in  the  rich  and  elegant  gown  whom  she  was 
covering  from  him.  But  Mrs.  Rugg's  eyes  unyieldingly 
drove  him  mercilessly  back  into  the  crowd  from  which  he 
had  so  suddenly  stepped.  She  saw  him  offer  his  arm  to  a 
young  girl  who  was  looking  confusedly  about  near-by. 


The  House  of  the  Great  Voice          135 

With  a  last  desperately  endeavouring  and  unsuccessful 
glance  back  of  him,  he  was  gone. 

Dulce  stood  suddenly  erect  and  turned  to  her. 

"What  is  the  matter,  Dona  Rina?  I  felt  your  fingers 
trembling  on  me.  Are  you  tired  of  seeing  me  star-gazing? 
Shall  we  go  back  to  our  seats?" 

They  left  the  small  lacuna  of  humanity  where  they  had 
stood  amid  the  swarming  surge,  and  drifted  back  with 
the  tide  of  crowds  into  the  auditorium.  When  they  were 
again  "settled,"  Dulce  softly  asked: 

"Do  you  know,  Dona  Rina,  why  I  used  the  word  'star- 
gazing,' when  I  had  been  looking  down?  It — it  was 
because  I  thought  I  might  see  him,.  I  imagine  he  must 
be  still  in  Paris  somewhere.  How  human  we  are,  always ! 
Here  I  have  been  dreading  that  very  thing,  for  one  sight 
of  him  would  probably  put  me  back,  back,  back  along 
the  road  I  am  trying  to  travel.  And  to-night  I  feel 
fate  so  strongly  in  this  house,  that  I  think  that  marvellous 
voice  is  leading  me  somewhere.  I  seem  to  feel  each  note 
of  it  fetching  me  a  step  nearer  what  the  gitana  talked 
of  ...  great  crowds  .  .  .  and  the  voice,  note  by  note, 
seems  to  build  up  like  a  pyramid.  .  .  .  And  yet,  feeling 
all  that,  feeling  it  like  feeling  a  friend  trying  to  urge 
me  along  the  Great  Way,  I  had  to  stare  down  the  beauti- 
ful ladder,  hoping  for  the  terrible  pain  and  set-back  of 
seeing  him.  And  it  was  there  I  looked,  because,  in  the 
strangest  way,  I  always  seem  to  picture  him  as  climbing 
up  toward  me — struggling  up — yet  never  reaching  me, 
for  everything  gets  dark.  Everything  got  dark  in  that 
big  well  of  the  stairway  for  a  moment.  So  now  I  am 
trembling  with  anxiety  to  hear  that  voice  again,  Dona 
Rina.  There  is  light  for  me  in  that  voice.  I  feel  dark- 
ness and  fate  in  this  house,  yet  that  voice  seems  to  light 
up  all  the  shadows  of  that  big  stage — to  me  it  seems  to 
light  up  those  terrible  dim  canvas  wings." 

"Dulce,"  said  Mrs.  Rugg,  her  voice  troubled,  "I — I 
am  glad  to  have  you  say  that — about  being  set  back — not 
wanting  to  be.  I  begin  to  understand  you  so  well,  that  I 


136  The  Great  Way 

fear  for  you,  with  you;  and  just  now,  as  you  were  looking 
down  'the  beautiful  ladder,'  I  caught  a  man  appraising 
you — I  can  call  it  nothing  else,  though  to  be  just  I  think 
he  could  not  help  it.  And  I  was  so  frightened  for  you  in 
case  you  saw,  that  I  glared  at  him — glared  him  out  of 
countenance  so  that  he  slunk  away.  Was  that  an  im- 
pertinence to  you,  Dulce?  Did  I  do  right?" 

"I  thank  you  for  it,  Dona  Rina — Dona  Rina  dear" 
said  Dulce  softly.  There  was  sudden  darkness  in  the 
house.  The  act  began. 

Once,  and  then  again,  Mrs.  Rugg  heard  her  whisper  to 
herself:  "Holy  God!  .  .  .  Holy  God!" 

And  thus  the  remainder  of  the  play  passed  for  them — 
almost  in  silence. 

At  breakfast  the  next  morning  Mrs.  Rugg  said: 
"Dulce,  I  am  going  to  Versailles  this  afternoon — to  a 
friend's  house.  Shall  you  go?  It  is  for  you  to  decide." 

Dulce  hesitated  a  moment.  "N-no,  Dona  Rina,  I — we 
— we  would  both  be  embarrassed."  She  added,  after  a 
few  moments :  "Dona,  there  is  no  way  for  me  to  tell  you 
how  good  you  are  to  me.  Asking  me  to  your  friend's 
house,  for  instance.  But  then,  you  know  how  good  vou 
are." 

They  were  her  first  voluntary  words  since  the  close 
of  the  opera.  Her  mood  of  silence  had  been  deeper,  more 
painful  to  see,  than  ever  before.  Her  brooding,  mani- 
folded, was  upon  her,  suffusing  her  eyes  with  their  hungry 
look  of  troubled,  speechless  need,  crying  out  in  their  dark 
misty  silence  the  desperate  anxiety  of  her  seeking. 

"I  have  to  go,  Dulce,  or  I  would  not  leave  you  as  you 
are  to-day.  I  shall  worry  at  your  being  alone.  Unless 
you  will  promise  me  to  do  something  or  go  somewhere. 
You  have  not  been  in  the  Louvre.  Will  you  go  there?" 

"What  is  the  Louvre?" 

"That  enormous  building  around  the  Tuileries  gardens. 
The  museum.  The  greatest  in  the  world." 

"Oh,  yes,"  said  Dulce,  listlessly.     "I  suppose  I  ought 


The  House  of  the  Great  Voice          137 

to  go  to  it,  now  I  am  here.  As  I  used  to  go  sometimes 
to  the  Prado.  Yes,  I  will  go  there,  Dona  Rina." 

"I  think  I  shall  drive  to  Versailles.  I  will  drop  you 
at  the  entrance  to  the  Louvre.  With  your  'touch  of  the 
poeta,'  Dulce,  you  are  sure  to  enjoy  it." 

"If  it  is  beautiful,  of  course  I  shall,  Dona  Rina."  And 
after  luncheon  Mrs.  Rugg  set  her  down  at  the  entrance 
from  within  the  gardens. 

"It  closes  at  four,  I  think,  Dulce.  Anyway,  you  should 
be  home  before  me.  Promise  me  not  to  go  anywhere 
else,  Dulce!" 

"I  promise,  Dona  Rina." 

"Remember  how  I  would  worry  if  you  were  not  home. 
Good-bye,  dear." 

"Good-bye,  Dona  Rina." 

They  had  said  the  farewell  in  English,  and  the  repeated 
word  stayed  in  Dulce's  mind  as  the  motor  sped  away. 
She  went  into  the  great  Palace  as  if  her  step  through 
the  grey  portal  in  some  mysterious  way  were  shutting 
her  in  truth  from  her  kind  benefactress,  and  the  thought 
was  strongly,  unreasoningly  with  her  as  her  eyes  travelled 
through  her  first  careless,  unstudied  glance  at  the  tre- 
mendous hall.  Only  its  size  grasped  her  senses,  and  as 
with  a  message  of  loneliness. 

Then,  as  the  perspective  lengthened  magically  before 
her  vision,  a  little  quick  breath  escaped  her  with  a  tangible 
sound,  and  in  one  of  the  impulses  peculiar  to  her  she 
went  straight  forward  to  a  guard  at  the  foot  of  the 
big  stairway,  and  addressed  him  in  a  quick  mixture  of 
garbled  French  and  Spanish. 

"Friend,  I  am  a  Spaniard,  but  a  few  days  at  Paris. 
What  is  the  word  in  French  for  to  hang?  Comprend  tu 
moi?  There  is  something  here — dans  les  halles — ici — 
which  is  pendiente — pendiente  y  gentil!" 

"Ah,  oui,  mademoiselle !"  said  the  guard  suddenly ;  and 
he  graphically  raised  his  hands.  "Gentil?  Les  articles 
des  arts — ils  sont  tres  'gentil'!  Est-il  comme  9a,  made- 
moiselle ?" 


138  The  Great  Way 

As  she  wandered  on  and  up  the  broad  stairway,  a 
curious  thrill  went  through  her,  queerly  recurring  as  she 
climbed,  sweeping  through  her  again  and  again  as  her 
slow,  awed  ramble  first  brought  her  to  a  halt  before  the 
Victory,  then  bore  her  up  and  on,  into  one  of  the  trans- 
verse galleries,  where  the  commingling  colours  of  a  thou- 
sand pictures  stretched  glowing  before  her  and  around 
her.  She  paused,  again  and  again,  breathlessly  before 
one  and  another  and  another  till  the  overpowering  sense 
of  too  great  luxury  whirled  her  mind  back  to  the  Victory 
and  the  quiet  colour  of  its  marble,  and  she  tried  to 
retrace  her  steps. 

But  they  were  lost  as  a  desert  track  under  the  wind. 
She  had  turned  somewhere  .  .  .  and  forgotten  .  .  .  and 
she  was  in  a  new  gallery,  its  huge  vista  marching  away 
before  her  like  the  vast  mystic  spaces  of  a  dream. 

It  seemed  to  her  dazzled  eyes  and  brain  as  though 
miles  of  rich  beauty  were  reaching  endlessly,  infinitely, 
through  the  great  house. 

"It  is  a  Gran  Via  in  itself !"  she  breathed ;  and  these 
words  were  to  flash  and  re-flash  in  her  memory  like  some 
particularity  of  a  beautiful  gem's  facet.  On  and  on  she 
walked,  bewildered  more  and  more,  her  amazement  grow- 
ing from  awe  very  near  to  fright  ...  on  and  on  through 
this  great  way,  through  the  great  rooms  that  a  waiting 
monarch  had  expectantly  prepared  for  Catharine  de 
Medici,  on  and  on  through  this  house  whose  ravishing 
accoutrement  cried  out  aloud  the  rape  of  Europe  for  her 
terrific  wealths  of  form  and  colour,  the  form  and  colour 
given  to  Spirit  ...  on  through  the  amassment  of  beauty 
representative  of  Peoples  and  of  Time — of  years,  cen- 
turies, ages,  epochs,  of  nations  dead,  alive,  and  dying. 
.  .  .  She  was  dumbstruck,  beyond  the  one  poor  question 
that  rose  and  strove  to  speak  through  her  striving,  be- 
dazed  mind:  "What  does  it  all  mean?  What  does  it  all 
mean  ?" 

Fluctuations  of  spirit  rose  and  fell  in  her,  waves  of  a 
strange  joy  never  before  tasted,  surging  through  her  soul 


The  House  of  the  Great  Voice          139 

productive  with  sensations  of  colour  that  seemed  to  be- 
come sound  ...  as  if  she  were  in  the  glowing  power  of 
a  strong,  unfamiliar  wine.  .  .  . 

Yet,  for  all  its  oversweeping  strength  and  strange- 
ness, a  wine  with  one  element  that  was  not  unfamiliar, 
that  was  in  very  essence  familiarity,  historically  personal 
familiarity.  It  was  a  golden  intoxicant;  and  in  it, 
through  it,  had  been  detailed  flashes:  Murillos,  superb, 
superlative  Murillos,  but  flashes  too  poignant  to  be  quaffed 
separately  out  of  their  rich  vessels  now,  details  truly, 
only,  in  this  greater,  this  huge  vaporoso  ubiquitous 
here.  .  .  . 

On  and  on  she  walked  still,  marvelling  with  fresh  glad- 
ness at  each  recurrent  sweep  and  throb  of  her  emotion. 
.  .  .  Snatches  of  unformulated  thought  came  to  her,  alive 
again  out  of  the  mists  of  her  early  childhood,  thoughts 
early  as  any  memories  of  the  Paduan  Francis  on  the  wall 
— imaginative,  wild  little  thoughts  that  had  defied,  as  her 
child  lips  had  not  dared  defy,  the  fond,  fervently  fearing 
old  grandmother  who  had  drawn,  for  that  very  early  mindj 
miracles  and  mysteries  of  her  old,  great  Faith.  They 
were  little,  instinctive,  fluttering  thoughts,  forgotten  long 
ago,  but  evidently  not  dead  .  .  .  not  dead.  .  .  . 

On,  on,  through  corridors  of  Egyptology  into  further 
and  still  further  rooms,  rooms  alive  with  more  and  more 
of  paintings,  of  pottery,  of  jewels,  and  furniture,  and 
fabrics,  and  more  pictures,  pictures,  pictures.  .  .  . 

"And  all  this,  all  this,  is  here  for  People — just  People 
— for  Society!" 

As  she  breathed  the  words  the  queer  new  joy  swept 
over  her  once  more. 

"What  does  it  mean?    What  does  it  all  mean?" 

She  paused,  with  a  little  startled  cry,  in  a  gallery  very 
rich  with  Murillo  again,  and  with  Velasquez. 

"So  Spain  really  has  given,  too — given  so  that  it 
counts,  and  shows !  Given  forever,  part  of — of  This! 
Thanks  to  God  for  that!  Thanks  to  God!"  Then  she 
went  on,  on,  on  in  the  silent  glow  and  labyrinthine  tumult 


140  The  Great  Way 

of  luxuriant  colour,  while  through  the  great  house  a  voice 
seemed  to  gather  and  speak  to  her  ...  a  vast,  murmur- 
ing, inarticulate  voice,  mysterious,  miraculous,  of  sheer 
spirit,  yet  which  spoke,  whispering  to  her  intricately 
sensitive  mind,  to  her  boundless  susceptibility,  with  all 
the  beauty,  all  the  music,  of  that  great  voice  of  the  night 
before.  .  .  .  Shadows  crept  along  the  Seine,  yet  Dulce 
still  crept  through  the  dusking  galleries,  walking  .  .  . 
walking  into  this  exquisite  new-found  life  along  floors 
that  Marie  Antoinette  had  walked  .  .  .  lifting  her  head 
the  more  to  drink  in  her  new-found  life  between  walls  at 
sight  of  whose  mere  outside  shell  Marie  Antoinette,  trun- 
dling to  death,  had  bowed  her  proud  head  in  memory  of 
all  the  hidden  beauty,  and  wept.  .  .  . 

"We  close,  mademoiselle !     We  close !     You  must  go !" 

She  was  standing  on  the  wide  stairs  again,  breathing 
in  the  marble  softness  of  the  Victory,  the  poised  onrush 
of  its  Samothracian  wings.  A  guard  was  shaking  her 
by  her  shoulder,  and  presently  she  found  herself,  shaking 
verily  from  shoulders  to  feet,  in  the  dim  gardens  of  the 
Tuileries.  She  moved  slowly  to  a  seat  beneath  the 
spectral  form  of  a  great  naked  woman's  statue,  and  sat 
down,  quivering. 

For  a  long  while  she  sat  there  in  the  quick  and  quicker 
darkness,  breathing  heavily,  shivering  heedlessly  in  the 
chill  night-wind  of  November  that  swept  mercilessly 
through  the  distant  Arch  of  Triumph  and  down  through 
the  whole  length  of  the  mammoth  lane  of  gardens. 

Suddenly  she  started  up,  turned  toward  the  rue  de 
Rivoli,  and  began  to  run — fearlessly,  swiftly. 


CHAPTER  XX 

"AT  LAST  i  KNOW!" 

MRS.  RUGG  had  been  nervously  waiting  in  her  room 
and  was  standing,  expectant,  eagerly  anxious,  when  Dulce 
whirled  in  and  swooped  excitedly  upon  her. 

"At  last  I  know!  Holy  God,  Dona  Rina,  at  last  I 
know!" 

"What  is  the  matter,  Dulce?  You  have  frightened  me 
terribly!  What  is  it?" 

"My  hunt  is  over,  Dona  Rina!     At  last  I  know!" 

"Try  to  be  quiet,  Dulce!  You  must  eat,  dear — you 
may  tell  me  later !" 

And  she  paid  no  heed  to  the  stream  of  ejaculatory 
speech,  but  with  "mistress"  long  forgotten  she  now 
slipped  through  the  transition  from  comrade  to  maid  in 
her  own  turn,  and  managed  to  take  away  the  girl's  hat 
and  wraps,  to  ring  for  wine,  to  make  her  drink  it. 

"See — see  what  I  bought  for  you,  Dulce — on  the  bed 
there !  I  was  so  nervous  and  frightened  about  you  that 
I  had  to  go  out  and  walk  and  walk,  and  I  got  this  for 
you — the  Valse  Brune!  I  thought  we  would  get  in  a 
piano — I  can  play  a  little.  And  you  can  sing  it  for  me !" 

But  she  could  no  longer  stem  the  girl's  dammed  up 
flow  of  words,  and  Dulce,  her  eyes  madly  lit,  and  her 
dormant  Latin  gesture  drawing  her  hands  and  arms  into 
rapid  movement,  sprang  to  her  feet  and  broke  into  her 
characteristic  wild  pacing  of  the  floor. 

"Dona  Rina,  I  have  got  to  leave  you!" 

"Leave  me,  Dulce?     Dulce!" 

"Yes !  Yes !  Let  me  tell  you !  I  have  words  at  last ! 
I  have  the  word!  It  was  all  meant,  Dona  Rina!  My 

141 


142  The  Great  Way 

meeting  you,  Paris,  the  Opera,  the  Louvre!  Most  of 
all,  the  Louvre !  I  found  out  there !  I  found  there  what 
I  was  hunting  for.  Thank  God !  At  last  I  know !  And 
it  was  all  but  one  little  word,  just  one — think  of  that! 
Yet,  it  is  exactly  as  if  I  knew  a  whole  new  language ! 
That  word  is  Art,  Dona  Rina,  Art,  do  you  hear?  I 
myself  have  heard  it,  and  said  it,  hundreds  and  even 
thousands  of  times,  I  suppose,  and  never  knew  what  it 
meant  until  to-day,  when  a  great  voice  seemed  to  tell  me, 
there  in  the  Louvre.  .  .  .  Even  last  night,  when  I  heard 
that  great  voice,  I  did  not  comprehend,  though  since  I 
have  heard  the  greater  one  in  the  Louvre,  the  other  comes 
even  closer  home  to  me !  Do  you  think  that  I  am  crazy, 
Dona  Rina?" 

"No,  dear,  no,  but  I  am  frightened!" 

"You  would  not  be  frightened,  Dona  mia,  if  you  under- 
stood. So  I  will  try  to  speak  more  slowly.  For  I  have 
the  words  now,  and  if  I  only  can  speak  slowly  enough 
for  you  to  hear  them,  you  will  understand !  Dona, 
dear,  dear  Dona  Rina,  it  is  all  as  clear  as  glass  to  me, 
now,  this  secret  that  I  have  been  aching  and  straining 
and  eating  my  heart  to  find.  That  is  wonderful,  is  it 
not?  Especially  since  the  gypsy  told  me  it  would  be  so, 
and  that  it  would  be  in  a  great  city,  and  that  I  must 
leave  the  caravan  at  Barcelona,  where  instantly  I  meet 
you!  Dio,  Dio,  you  know  a  lot  about  me,  Dona  Rina, 
you  know  all  of  the  story  part.  But  let  me  tell  you,  the 
rest  of  me  I  myself  did  not  know  until  to-night !" 

She  sat  down  suddenly,  after  her  old  fashion  in  her 
old  poor  room,  on  the  edge  of  Mrs.  Rugg's  bed,  but  she 
gave  her  listener  no  pause  for  answer. 

"Just  think,  Dona  Rina,  of  having  a  whole  great  palace, 
and  all  its  wonderful  rich  treasures,  murmuring  to  you, 
speaking  to  you,  telling  you  their  story  and  their  mean- 
ing! There  in  the  Louvre,  that  miracle  happened  to  me 
— a  sheer  miracle,  just  as  straight  from  God,  whoever 
He  is,  or  whatever  He  is.  ...  And  part  of  the  miracle 
is,  that  I  am  not  afraid  to  say  such  questioning  things 


"At  Last  I  Know!"  143 

any  more — such  questioning  things  as  'whoever,'  and 
'whatever.'  Dona  Rina,  I  am  not  afraid  of  a/nythvng 
any  more,  except  being  bad.  Just  suddenly,  I  seemed  to 
understand,  and  I  am  not  afraid! 

"I  am  not  even  afraid  of  blood  any  more,  since  I  heard 
that  voice,  and  you  do  not  know  what  that  is  for  a 
Spaniard,  Dona  Rina,  a  Spanish  girl  born  in  the  red 
shadow  of  the  convent ! 

"No,  I  tell  you  that  even  as  I  say  the  words,  I  am 
no  longer  afraid  of  blood,  and  the  fearful  idea  of  blood 
sacrifice!  In  the  bull-fight,  yes,  yes,  it  now,  I  think, 
would  horrify  me  there,  where  I  never  used  to  be  afraid 
.  .  .  but  in  religion  ?  No ! 

"Those  are  terrible  words,  perhaps,  Dona  Rina,  but 
not  half  so  terrible  as  some  that  my — my  Jose  Luis  said 
to  me  when  I  made  him  find  words  for — for  what  I  did. 
He  said  it  was  'Traffic  in  God,'  and — and  that,  Dona 
Rina,  is  the  only  thing  I  have  any  fear  of  now!" 

"And  that,  dear,"  said  Dona  Rina  gently,  "you  need 
never  fear  again — oh,  surely,  surely !" 

"Not  only  that,  Dona  Rina,  but  I  know,  now,  how 
to  pay  back  for  what  I  did — how  to  pay  back  into  Society 
for  what  I  stole  from  it.  The  great  voice  told  me  to-day : 
Art.  And  the  money  I  get  from  it — but  that  part  is  a 
small  incidental  matter  between  me  and  God,  whereas 
the  art  itself  is  a  matter  between  me  and  the  People — 
'just  people.'  .  .  .  Do  you  understand  me  a  little,  Dona 
Rina?" 

"Yes,  yes !"  cried  the  woman,  her  troubled  eyes  brim- 
ming over  as  she  spoke.  "Yes!  But  why  did  you  say 
you  were  going  to  leave  me,  Dulce?  I  will  help,  my  dear, 
not  hinder!" 

"Dear,  dear  Dona,  all  that  is  fate!"  cried  Dulce. 
"You  know  how  strongly  I  feel  fate,  and  I  know  what 
I  must  do !  Last  night  began  it — began  my  waking  up, 
though  I  did  not  fully  wake  until  to-day.  At  the  Opera, 
I  was  stirring  and  struggling  in  my  sleep,  pleading  with 
that  voice  to  help  wake  me,  but  it  took  to-day's  bigger 


144  The  Great  Way 

voice  to  do  so  muchl  Dona  Rina,  you  do  not  know  it, 
and  I  myself  never  realized  it  before,  but  /  have  a  voice, 
a  great  voice,  and  I  felt  it  and  in  my  sleep  knew  it  last 
night,  when  that  angel  was  singing  and  I  had  to  sit  hold- 
ing tight  to  myself  not  to  open  my  own  throat,  as  she 
would  lift  back  her  lovely  white  one  as  she  does,  and 
sing  with  her!  .  .  .  And  this  afternoon,  that  greater 
voice  whispered  to  me  what  I  could  do  with  mine!  You 
see,  Dona  Rina,  the  Louvre  and  not  the  beautiful  Opera 
was  the  real  House  of  the  Great  Voice. 

"And  whatever  my  own  may  be — not  Melba's,  of  course, 
for  God  is  never  good  to  people,  I  imagine,  twice  exactly 
alike — whatever  mine  may  be,  /  can  put  that  other  voice 
into  it — that  voice  that  cries  out  for  People  from  the 
walls  of  the  Louvre!" 

"I  understand,  Dulce !"  cried  Mrs.  Rugg.  "And  I  will 
help — oh,  I  will  help !  For  you  are  not  going  to  leave  me ! 
And  I  am  so  glad  that  we  are  right  here  in  Paris,  the 
most  perfect  place  in  the  world  for  all  such  things — we 
will  inquire  and  plan  right  away — we  will  begin  to-mor- 
row !" 

But  Dulce  shook  her  head  sadly. 

"The  reason  I  must  leave  you,  Dona  Rina,  is  because 
I  must  start  all  over  again  from  the  very  beginning  of 
the  road  where  I  started  out  wrong  and  bad  before,  to 
begin  the  work  of  all  this.  For  the  work  is  a  terribly 
big,  hard  work,  and  I  must  start  quickly.  It  is  like  a 
big  pyramid  that  I  must  climb — or  build — whichever  way 
you  choose  to  call  it.  I  see  now  what  the  gypsy  meant. 
Thank  God  I  am  clever,  and  have  more  brains  than  you 
might  think;  and  as  for  mere  work,  I  can  do  the  hardest 
that  could  be  thought  of,  and  the  greatest  amount  of  it 
that  could  possibly  be  piled  up  for  me,  so  long  as  it — 
so  long  as  it  is — is  not  what  I  used  to  do,  Dona  Rina — 
so  long  as  I  do  not  have  to  go  to  the — the  Trudge  Market 
any  more!"  Abrupt  hot  tears  rolled  down  her  face  and 
Mrs.  Rugg  impulsively  sprang  to  her  and  folded  her  in 
her  arms. 


"At  Last  I  Know!"  145 

"You  never  shall  need  to,  dear!  And  why  is  this 
any  reason  that  you  should  leave  me?  Remember  how 
I  'want  to  help  you,  how  I  am  able  to  help  you !" 

But  though  Dulce  raised  her  hands  to  tighten  the  warm 
clasp  of  the  arms  about  her,  again  she  shook  her  head. 

"No,  dear,  dear  Dona  Rina.  It  must  be  with  no  one's 
money — just  by  my  own  work.  You  have  done  enough — 
all  that  it  was  meant  you  should  do.  You  have  taught  me 
better  than  ever  before  that  women  are  good  to  women, 
and  that  has  helped  me  to  make  a  vow,  that  all  my  life 
I  too  will  be  good  to  women,  as  well  as  I  know  how. 
And  I  must  not  take  your  money,  Dona  Rina.  What  I 
make — and  pay  back — must  be  utterly  of  my  own  mat- 
ing." 

"But,"  cried  the  distressed  woman,  instinctively  seiz- 
ing what  straw  of  advantage  she  could  from  the  tempest 
of  the  girl's  hectic  splendour  of  reasoning,  "remember 
what  you  yourself  said,  Dulce,  in  Barcelona,  that  very 
first  night,  sweet  and  pitiful  and  amusing  then,  but  tragic 
now  if  you  repudiate  it — that  if  I  were  in  need,  you  would 
not  let  me  be  your  maid,  you  would  give,  till  I  had  won, 
and — and  could  pay  back,  which  you  did  not  say.  How 
much  greater  your  case  to  fight,  dear  Dulce,  how  much 
happier,  afterward,  your  repayment!  Be  consistent — 
dear!" 

"Ah,  no,  no,  no,  it  is  not  the  same  case,  dear  Dona ! 
Your  very  heart  knows  the  nature  of  what  there  al- 
ready is  for  me  to  repay!  My  Dona  Rina,  your  heart 
knows!" 

"But  how  can  you  do  all  of  this  alone,  Dulce?  How 
can  you?  How  will  you  start — how,  where?" 

"I  do  not  know  how — yet.     But  it  shall  be  at  Cadiz." 

"At  Cadiz,  Dulce?  My  dear,  my  dear,  are  you  quite 
mad?" 

"Perhaps.  I  shall  see  it  all  quite  clearly,  and  that 
much  I  see  now.  I  tramped  out  of  Cadiz  once  on  my 
wrong  Gran  Via,  and  I  shall  tramp  in  again  to  start  my 
right  one." 


146  The  Great  Way 

"Dulce,  Dulce,"  pleaded  the  weeping  woman,  "how  can 
it  all  end?" 

"That,  Dona  Rina,  even  the  gitana  could  not  see.  But 
I  must  start  over  from  the  very  beginning,  that  much 
I  know.  I  have  money  enough  to  get  on  the  express  to 
Madrid,  and  there  I  can  work,  and  earn  my  fare  down 
to  Cadiz.  A  man  was  kind  to  me  in  Madrid  once — yes,  a 
man.  He  tried  to  stop  me  when — well,  when  I  was  hungry 
once.  He  will  give  me  decent  work,  in  a  little  oyster-shop 
that  he  keeps." 

"But,  Dulce,  your  wages — and  the — the  candlesticks 
and  mantones " 

"No,  Dona  Rina.  Besides  all  I  truthfully  said  and  felt 
about  them,  they  are  nothing  to  what  you  have  given 
me.  And  you  know  well  you  paid  my  wages  long  ago, 
Dona  Rina." 

"But  what  shall  I  give  you  from  myself,  Dulce?  I 
know  you  will  take  no  money — will  you  take  a  jewel, 
Dulce?  Any  jewel  I  have?" 

"I  will  take  simply  what  you  bought  for  me,  Dona 
Rina,  in  your  thoughtfulness,  and  when  I  was  worrying 
you,  too — the  Valse  Brune" 

"Oh,  Dulce;  Dulce;  you " 

"I  will  never  forget  you.  I  never  can!  But  that  will 
be  a  keepsake.  Put  your  name  on  it.  And  your  love  for 
me — if  you  will.  And  that  will  be  all.'* 

"But  you  will  write  to  me,  Dulce?    You  will  write?" 

"It — it  is  better  not,  I  think.  At  first  there  wo  aid 
be  only  hard  knocks  to  tell,  and — I — I  spell  like  the  devil. 
Dear  Dona,  we  shall  meet  again  in  the  Gran  Via.  I  feel 
it!  There  is  so  much  fate  in  this,  let  fate  attend  to  it 
all !  That  is  how  I  feel,  and  I  must  start  again  absolutely 
alone,  as  if  I  were  starting  for  the  first  time.  I  must !" 

Again  tears  came  to  Dulce,  blinding  her.  And  in  this 
moment  of  her  passionate  resolution  her  Dona,  with  all 
that  was  hers,  and  that  ached  in  her  possession  to  be 
given,  fell  powerless  before  it  and  had  only  tears  to  be 
able  to  give. 


CHAPTER  XXI 

THE    DISH    OF    SILVEK, 

THE  Mirage  of  Atlantis.  .  .  . 

The  Queen  of  the  Sea.  .  .  . 

The  Garden  of  the  Oceans.  .  .  . 

The  Spanish  Venice.  .  .  . 

Such  is  Cadiz,  deserving  all  her  list  of  names  since 
first  she  was  the  prodigal  daughter  of  Carthage — prodigal 
in  wealth,  more  prodigal  of  luxury.  .  .  . 

Luxury  in  which  Hannibal  lolled  while  his  fleet  decked 
itself  on  the  surrounding  waters.  .  .  . 

Luxury  in  which  Hamilca  Barca,  turning  his  back  to 
his  unhappy  child  Salammbo  while  she  wove  herself  into 
the  fatal  meshes  of  Tanit's  zai'mph  at  home  in  Africa, 
stood  with  his  keen  eyes  appraising  Cadiz's  riches  as 
Roman  soldiers  appraised  her  dancing-girls.  .  .  . 

Pompey  and  Caesar  quarrelled  over  her,  as  if  they  had 
been  women  and  she  what  she  then  was  called — the  Polished 
Jewel.  .  .  . 

And  as  if  the  vast  waters  through  which  her  shell- 
stone  rises  were  not  enough  of  deluge,  history  deluged  her, 
again  and  again,  with  peoples : 

Greeks.  .  .  .  Romans,  naming  her  City  of  Venus.  .  .  . 

Arabs.  .  .  .  Moors,  naming  her  Dish  of  Silver.  .  .  . 

And  Spaniards,  naming  her  every  pretty  thing  that 
they  could  think  of. 

Rich  she  has  been,  and  poor,  and  wiped  out,  and  re- 
peopled,  and  forgotten,  and  famous  again,  swinging  from 
fortune  to  fortune  like  the  pendulum  of  a  clock  until  she 
was  entirely  Spanish,  and  sank,  not  into  the  salt  waters 
whence  she  sprang,  but  into  languor,  like  a  passionate 
woman  satisfied  and  sleeping.  .  .  . 

147 


148  The  Great  Way 

And  there  she  lies  yet,  dreaming,  perhaps,  of  younger 
days  and  far-past  loves,  content,  like  her  present  nation, 
in  memories  of  treasures  that  made  her,  even  so  late  as 
when  England  lost  her  thirteen  States,  much  richer,  in 
mere  money,  than  London! 

Even  now,  shimmering  out  of  the  blue  ocean  against 
the  blue  sky  in  all  the  soft  splendour  of  her  white  stone 
and  Italian  marbles,  which  climb  inward  from  the  very 
water's  edge  of  low  buttressed  wall  to  the  heart  of  her 
diminutive  self,  blending  and  hiding  her  many  hues  in  one 
big  gleaming  white  until,  on  close  approach  by  ship  or 
across  her  narrow  causeway  between  the  waves,  she  unveils 
her  ageless  beauty  in  fine  pastel  of  pink  and  green  and 
blue  and  gentle  yellows,  patterned  with  the  dark  grace 
of  falling  palms  in  rank  and  file  and  cluster,  lies  this 
dreaming  city. 

Alas  for  salt  water,  symbol  of  grief  and  symbol  of 
calamity!  yet  all  the  salt  water  of  the  Atlantic  has  not 
washed  away  the  poem  Cadiz;  and  thus,  in  poet's  own 
truth,  she  looks  to-day,  if  to-day's  sun  is  forth.  .  .  . 

Across  the  causeway,  from  the  great  peninsular  on  to 
the  little  one,  home  to  ihis  prodigal  daughter  a  prodigal 
daughter  returned,  not  with  humility,  yet  with  eyes  furtive 
somewhat,  for  in  the  sea-wind  she  tasted  the  poignant- 
blowing  breath  of  her  nativity,  which  frightened  her  as 
she  walked  trembling  into  the  fair  sunlit  Plaza  of  Isabel. 

It  was  early  morning,  and  she  was  hungry. 

At  Madrid,  she  had  found  that  her  old  friend  of  the 
oyster-shop  was  no  more — or  anyway,  there  no  more; 
he  had  gone  into  the  Great  Mystery  of  death,  or  else 
the  still  greater  one  of  the  life  of  a  retired  oyster-opener. 
And  she  had  walked  from  the  capital — the  very  centre  of 
Spain — to  Cadiz.  .  .  .  Months.  .  .  . 

Her  latest  money  was  nearly  spent,  but  that  was  no 
new  worry  to  her,  and  it  was  not  at  parting  from  them 
that  she  turned  pale  as  she  set  out  two  coppers,  at  a 
wine-shop  opposite  the  water-front,  for  some  bread  and 
a  small  glass  of  russet-coloured  Amontillado.  It  was 


The  Dish  of  Silver  149 

because  she  had  known,  since  she  was  no  higher  than 
the  table,  the  friendly  face  of  the  old  hombre  who  took 
the  coins  with  a  courteous  "gracias"  for  the  fraction 
bonus ;  and  that  he  went  away,  unrecognizant,  brought 
with  the  very  pain  of  it  a  throb  of  thankful  satis- 
faction. 

Deeper  in  the  city,  at  a  shop  near  to  the  cathedral, 
she  bought  a  fan  for  half  a  peseta,  daring  the  face  of 
the  woman  behind  the  counter.  Again  she  was  not  known, 
though  soap  and  lace  and  scent  had  met  her  coins  here 
throughout  former  years;  and  confident  now,  and  with  a 
consequent  little  flutter  of  spirit,  she  bought  a  handker- 
chief too — though  she  noticed  that  it  took  her  last  real — 
to  reinforce  the  fan  in  assisting  her  dingy  costume,  and 
went  boldly  into  the  streets  again,  and  through  them 
whereso  she  chose,  unfearing — though  she  carefully  did 
not  choose  the  Rosario  .  .  .  where  certain  two  old  people 
used  to  live.  .  .  . 

Her  purpose  was  set,  and  clear  to  her  vision  as  a  fish 
in  crystal  water,  whether  or  no  she  might  succeed  in 
grasping  it ;  but  before  the  day's  task,  she  had  a  pil- 
grimage to  make,  devout  and  exacting  in  this  new  vision 
of  hers  as  any  godly  zealot's,  and  she  pointed  her  steps, 
by  way  of  the  Paseo  del  Sur,  to  the  Capuchin  Convent. 
Having  passed  the  vivid-coloured  Shepherdess  Virgin  who 
sits  in  a  glass  case  with  her  large  straw  hat,  and  having 
made  a  grave  reverence  to  it  for  the  warding  nun's  sake, 
she  entered  the  sanctuary  and  stood,  with  all  the  devotion 
of  a  travelling  foreigner,  before  the  high  altar,  gazing 
up  at  the  rich  soft  beauties  of  the  "Betrothal  of  Saint 
Catharine"  painted  there. 

All  the  miracle  and  wonder  of  the  House  of  the  Great 
Voice  came  back  to  her,  sacred  like  a  confirmation  in  her 
new  understanding,  her  opened  book.  Here  had  Murillo 
lived,  breathed,  worked.  Here  on  this  very  spot,  he  had 
stood,  as  she  now  stood,  evening  after  evening  as  he  made 
and  made  this  thing,  gazing  up  at  his  labour  .  .  .  until 
his  own  evening  came  and  the  fatal  scaffold  fell  from 


150  The  Great  Way 

before  it,  this  his  last  great  deed,  the  scaffold  that  he 
had  climbed  smiling,  martyrlike,  for  the  life  of  the  world's 
history,  dashing  him  down  to  death  as  she  might  one 
day  fall  in  her  last  song,  in  the  last  plunge  of  her  Gran 
Via.  .  .  . 

"Murillo,  Spanish  like  myself,  ignorant,  at  the  begin- 
ning, as  myself,  afterward  living — and  dying — in  golden 
glories  of  his  own  making  out  of  Spanish  air,  and  Spanish 
colours  and  thoughts  and  emotions.  .  .  .  Gracias  a  Dios, 
there  are  more  great  Spaniards !  .  .  .  Thanks  to  God, 
there  will  be  one  more  still !" 

And  with  this  solemn  seriousness  of  inward  speech,  she 
paid  the  poor  sweet-faced  nun  who  tended  not  only  the 
door  but  the  insane  in  the  abandoned  convent,  paid  the 
waiting  beggar  in  the  courtyard,  and  was  gone.  Coppers, 
even  the  very  last  ones — how  much  they  could  pay  for  in 
Spain ! 

She  was  busy,  afoot,  for  some  hours,  indefatigable  in 
persistent  inquiries  here,  there,  and  yonder,  throughout 
the  entire  business  part  of  town,  but  restricted  to  the 
scattered,  buried  little  world  of  the  Teatro;  and  quite 
early  after  midday  she  had  a  small  fund  of  smaller  talk 
that  flushed  her  pale  cheeks  with  nervous  eagerness,  and 
was  hastening  beyond  the  lovely  Plaza  de  Loreto  into 
the  quietest  district  of  the  city. 

For  all  its  eagerness  and  momentary  flush,  that  face, 
she  realized  with  a  pang,  must  prove  little  in  her  favour. 
She  had  caught  sight  of  it  in  the  cracked  mirror  of  an 
eating-shop — where  she  had  talked,  not  eaten — and  had 
the  broken  symbol  frightened  her,  which  it  certainly  would 
have  done,  once,  it  could  not  have  cast  out  a  whiter 
face,  a  face  more  hungry,  more  changed,  more  written 
on  of  need,  and  pain,  and  unearthly,  unyouthful  queer- 
ness. 

But  she  thrust  away  the  fretting  memory  of  it,  and 
with  set  lips  and  resolute  eyes  marched  into  her  street 
and  approached  a  house  letting  into  a  small,  dead-looking 
theatre. 


The  Dish  of  Silver  151 

At  the  door,  however,  sudden,  overpowering  timidity 
whelmed  her,  and  she  leant  against  the  masonry  beside 
it,  thankful  that  the  street  was  empty  of  eyes  to  see  her 
daring  or  her  cowardice.  It  was  a  very  small  street* 
Indeed,  a  very,  very  small  street,  a  bakingly,  shimmer- 
ingly  sunlit  street,  very  narrow,  of  yellow  housewalls,  all 
of  them  of  delicate-coloured  stucco,  a  street  most  notice- 
ably secluded,  solitary,  quiet,  not  only  because  it  was  in 
the  most  unfrequented  district  of  the  town,  an  outskirt, 
or  what  might  perhaps  even  better  be  called  a  cotillon 
of  Cadiz,  but  because  it  was  not  just  high  noon,  but  higher 
noon,  when  it  is  far  from  well  for  folk  to  be  out  of 
doors.  The  one  beside  which  Dulce  drooped  was  small, 
but  a  matter  of  large  decoration :  twisted  and  beautifully 
tinted  columns  and  overpiece,  marvellously  old,  flanked 
and  crowned  its  doorway  as  if  this  had  sprung  up  from 
the  street  and  must  be  kept  within  the  right  bounds  of  its 
place  with  as  good  looks  as  possible,  and  making  a  sole 
and  unconscious  advertisement  for  the  lost  little  theatre 
by  their  show  of  fair  pastel  colours  and  lovely  graceful- 
ness of  carven  lines  in  the  otherwise  unbroken  cream- 
hues  of  the  curving  street. 

To  a  happy  person,  the  whole  environ  would  have  mur- 
mured the  word  "Peace."  To  Dulce,  it  said  "Need!" 
with  all  the  force  of  the  sunlight,  the  sharp  brilliance  of 
diamonds  to  the  starving;  and  herself  murmuring  "Mi 
Dio !  Mi  Dio !"  yet  calling  not  upon  God  but  upon  a 
god  lately  hers,  the  nameless,  glittering  god  that  had 
seemed  to  shine  down  upon  her  in  the  convent  of  the 
pitiful  insane,  she  straightened  back  her  drooping  shoul- 
ders and  reached  her  hand  toward  the  door. 

But  her  hand  did  not  reach  it.  Instead,  it  reached 
her  hand,  bruising  it  and  sweeping  nearly  by  her  face, 
as  though  it  had  been  hurled  open  by  blind  fury;  and 
Fury  itself,  not  blind,  but  with  eyes  ablaze,  and  hot  lips 
cursing,  issued  into  the  street  in  a  fat  Spanish  woman, 
who  was  dressed  in  chic  mourning  and  whose  powder 
was  damp  and  red  with  rage. 


152  The  Great  Way 

"Saint  Catharine !  Saint  Margaret !  Saint  Mary 
Magdalen !  Saint  Hell !"  she  cried,  and  fell  upon  Dulce 
as  if  the  pale  girl  had  been  her  hope,  her  friend,  her  sister, 
and  her  husband. 

"They  are  devils,  devils,  when  I  have  spent  eighteen 
dollars  for  my  costumes !  And  they  call  me  fat,  fat! 
Saint  Swill!  Do  you  think  I  was  not  fat  when  they 
engaged  me?" 

"Senorita,"  said  Dulce  softly,  judging  her  to  be  a 
senora,  "I  assure  you  I  am  sorry  for  the  injustice,  for  I 
am  a  very  sympathetic  girl;  and  besides,  I  heard  gossip 
all  over,  this  morning,  of  their  brutality  to  you,  and  that 
you  would  be  no  woman  of  spirit  if  you  stood  much 
more !" 

"And  I  will  not!"  cried  the  diva.  "Let  me  tell  you,  I 
have  resigned  every  single  day,  and  this  time  I  mean  it! 
Do  you  believe  me?" 

Dulce  seemed  shocked. 

"I  would  believe  nothing  else  of  any  lady^  she  said. 
"Is  there  any  little  service  I  could  do  for  you?" 

"Yes.  Go  up  and  cut  their  throats  for  me!"  cried 
the  diva. 

"Well,  I  will  do  my  best  as  to  that,  be  sure,  for  I 
have  come  to  see  the  wicked  things  on  business,"  said 
Dulce.  "Are  you  truly  leaving  them?  Surely  they  will 
send  for  you  back  again !" 

"If  they  ask  for  my  direction,"  exclaimed  the  large 
singer,  "tell  them  to  go  to  purgatory,  for  that  is  where 
they  told  me  to  go,  and  therefore,  naturally,  where  they 
will  not  find  me!  Thanks  to  God,  I  have  spoiled  their 
opening  for  them  here,  if  no  further,  for  there  is  certainly 
no  one  else  like  me  in  Spain,  and  it  would  not  surprise 
me  if  they  took  the  boat  back  to  Italy  to-night,  when 
one  is  sailing,  and  picked  some  Neapolitan  out  of  the 
gutter.  Are  you  looking  for  chorus?  They  are  devils, 
girl,  but  I  wish  you  luck.  If  they  go  on  at  all  without 
me,  they  will  need  you  and  more !" 

"You  will  make  a  great  gap,  I  am  sure!"  said  Dulce, 


The  Dish  of  Silver  153 

"And  if  your  voice  is  as  pretty  as  your  face,  you  must  be 
a  charming  singer!  What  a  pity  for  them  to  let  you 
leave!  What  is  the  matter  with  them?" 

"Bad  temper,  the  shameless  devils !"  cried  the  canta- 
triz.  "I  never  knew  such  tempers !  The  Maestro  is  dif- 
ferent, and  appreciated  my  demands.  He  is  an  angel! 
But  I  am  a  lady  of  ideas  and  character,  and  in  the  con- 
fusion he  could  not  pacify  us.  He  understands  music, 

but  the  other  two !"  And  she  broke  off  to  her  saints 

again,  and  from  them  to  a  kindly  repeated:  "Good  luck, 
girl!" 

"Thank  you,"  said  Dulce,  and  they  kissed,  and  the 
diva  rolled  noisily  down  the  street. 

"Now,"  thought  Dulce,  turning  again  toward  the 
house,  "either  luck  indeed  or  those  saints  of  hers  must 
have  been  with  me  to  get  me  here  at  such  a  moment !  And 
in  this  starving  town  of  all  places,  and  at  the  very  first 
throw !"  And  this  happy  philosophy  carried  her  bruised 
hand  in  a  joyous  little  gesture  toward  the  door  again. 
But  if,  after  the  wicked  way  of  thinking  of  the  East, 
God's  finger  is  fate,  and  one  that  writes  history  before 
it  happens  with  its  nail,  then  Dulce  must  have  been  set 
down  beforehand  not  to  pass  the  beautifully  scroll- 
columned  door  of  the  pretty  yellow  stuccoed  house,  for 
even  as  she  thus  reached  again,  again  it  opened,  and  hub- 
bub as  large  as  the  large  lady's  burst  forth  from  back  of 
it — nor  was  this  quite  a  miracle,  for  the  sum-total-equal 
of  her  clamour  was  here  made  up  by  a  triumverate  of 
excitables :  a  Jew,  a  Catalonian,  a  musician. 

These  three  very  doubtful  parts  of  speech,  in  their 
extravagant  haste,  seemed  to  have  seized  one  another  and 
leapt  down  the  stairs  like  brotherly  suicides,  or  else  to 
have  been  pushed  off  by  some  sane  person  with  a  rude 
sense  of  humour  at  the  top ;  but  having  arrived  strangely 
upright  in  the  street,  they  stopped  as  short  as  their  noise, 
and  as  though  dazzled  by  the  sun-shimmer — as  indeed 
they  were,  for  the  fierce  power  of  high  noon  was  now, 
at  two  o'clock,  still  uppermost,  together  with  the  added 


154  The  Great  Way 

bake  of  those  hundred  and  more  minutes  since  the  meri- 
dian. But  their  daze  was  further  and  more  haplessly  due 
to  the  fact  that  the  little  street  was  so  curved  that  its 
vistas  closed  in  near  at  either  hand,  and  the  direction 
taken  by  their  diva  was  thus  harder  to  know  than  if  she 
had  fluttered  upward  to  the  sky.  Even  there  the  Jew's 
eyes  sought  her,  and  in  coming  worldward  again  they 
encountered  Dulce.  In  the  same  moment  his  two  com- 
panions noticed  her. 

"Well,"  demanded  one,  "what  do  you  want  here?" 
It  was  the  Catalonian,  and  Dulce  knew  at  once,  now  that 
his  voice  rose  free  of  the  mutual  outcry,  that  though 
Spanish,  he  was  no  Andalusian,  for  the  quick,  ragged 
speech  held  harsh  traces  of  the  north.  Nor  were  his  com- 
rades natives  of  Cadiz,  for  this  figure  nearest  her,  she 
saw,  was  a  Spaniard  but  a  Jew,  dark-bearded  with  his 
skin  of  olive  showing  through,  and  with  white  teeth  and 
black  eyes  that  could  all  bite;  the  third,  as  obvious  of 
context,  was  Latin,  but  no  Spaniard — a  Neapolitan,  she 
decided,  long  and  narrow  and  white  of  face,  with  looping 
thick  black  hair  and  deep  fire-flecked  brown  eyes  that 
were  lit  with  childish  curiosity — the  Maestro,  Dulce  de- 
cided further,  for  his  hands  were  slender  and  nervous, 
and  twitched  all  the  while  as  if  their  flesh  sought  keys  to 
play  or  times  to  beat. 

"Work,"  she  had  answered,  before  she  had  thought 
all  this,  for  which  she  had  ample  pause  after  her  prompt 
monosyllable,  as  it  had  thrown  the  Jew  and  the  Cata- 
lonian into  fresh  astonishment,  and  her  gaze  had  held  the 
inquisitive  brown  eyes  of  the  long  thin  childlike 
musician. 

"Well?  Well?"  cried  the  Jew  impatiently  at  last,  and 
the  first  questioner,  a  man  of  business  apparently,  showed 
his  authority  and  bore  out  the  Jew  with  a  quick  addition 
to  his  angry  word : 

"Chorus?" 

"Yes,  if  not  a  part,"  said  Dulce. 

"Part?"  cried  the  man  contemptuously.     "Come,  do 


The  Dish  of  Silver  155 

not  waste  our  time!  Can  you  sing?  Say  what  you  can 
do  and  what  you  have  done !" 

"I  have  been  in  the  chorus  once.  For  several  nights,  at 
the  Alcazar  in  Barcelona." 

"Is  that  all?" 

"Yes." 

"And  you  bother  us,  with  no  more  to  offer?" 

"It  is  useless,"  interposed  the  Jew.  "We  need  some 
chorus.  But  we  need  experience,  or  looks,  or  both,  if  we 
can  get  them.  What  we  need  most  now  is  pretty 
girls." 

"I  am  very  pretty,"  said  Dulce. 

At  his  incredulous  stare  her  voice  became  impatient. 

"I  should  know,  should  I  not?  For  I  have  been  with 
myself  all  my  life,  and  you  have  been  far  away  from  me 
till  this  minute — thank  heaven !  And  let  me  tell  you  that 
when  I  am  in  spirits  I  am  one  of  the  prettiest  girls  in 
Spain.  Prettier  at  any  rate  than  any  Frenchwoman.  I 
have  just  been  in  Paris,  and  I  know!" 

The  two  men  looked  at  each  other,  and  despite  their 
rising  anger,  began  to  laugh.  The  Maestro,  though 
nearer  to  a  child's  mind  than  either  of  them,  did  not  even 
smile. 

"Go  away !  Go  away !"  said  the  Jew.  "If  you  faced 
an  audience,  they  would  let  you  know  your  looks !" 

"They  would  laugh !"  said  the  business  man. 

"They  would  weep !"  said  the  Jew. 

As  she  turned  the  despised  face  away  to  hide  its  pain, 
she  heard  a  third  voice — a  quiet  and  gentle  one. 

"Well,  friends,  could  you  ask  anything  more  than  that, 
in  an  actress  ?" 

It  was  the  voice  of  the  Maestro,  calm  and  serious,  with 
a  touch  of  startling  demand  in  it;  and  Dulce,  with  a 
swift  grateful  glance  at  him,  boldly  turned  her  tears, 
which  were  now  brave  and  angry  ones,  upon  the  two. 

"Exactly!  And  while  you  used  up  time  insulting  me, 
you  were  preventing  my  telling  you  that  not  only  am  I 


156  The  Great  Way 

clever  but  I  have  a  perfectly  wonderful,  beautiful  voice 
besides !" 

The  Jew  and  the  Catalonian  were  dividing  their  new 
astonishment  between  Dulce  and  the  Maestro,  who  now 
spoke  again  with  soft,  quick  words. 

"It  is  your  decision  as  well  as  mine,  my  friends.  But 
can  you  not  see  my  point?  The  girl  has  comedy  and 
tragedy,  and  the  figure  shows  that  only  in  the  face  is  she 
thin  like  me!  What  she  said  was  funny,  like  the  clown, 
though  she  was  angry,  like  a  serious  part!  I  could  have 
laughed  at  your  faces,  senores,  while  she  was  talking !  So 
would  the  people,  sometimes,  at  hers,  while  she  was  sing- 
ing, but  they  would  laugh  with  a  tear,  if  her  voice  sings 
as  it  talks !  And  she  says  the  voice  is  fine,  friends.  Shall 
we  try  it,  no?  It  might  be  for  the  senora's  part!" 

The  Jew  gasped,  but  the  business  man  was  silent.  The 
Maestro  turned  to  Dulce,  who  at  his  last  words  had  begun 
to  tremble,  with  a  great  sickening,  joyous  heart-leap. 
£>he  felt  faint  at  the  resurge  of  it,  in  which  her  mind 
seemed  swimming — desperately  swimming,  for  she  knew 
that  she  must  not  pay  this  Jew  and  this  out-Heroding 
Jew,  a  Catalonian,  one  tithe  of  facial  joy,  yet  she  must 
speak,  and  speak  quickly,  for  the  Maestro  stopped  silent, 
waiting  for  her.  And  the  instant  before  she  could  grasp 
assurance  and  push  it  into  her  voice  seemed  endless  to 
her.  Starvation  was  at  the  bottom  of  her  second's  cavern- 
ous weakness,  starvation  that  she  had  not  thought  about, 
weakness  at  which  she  passingly  wondered,  in  the  lightning- 
flash  thought  of  the  drowning.  Then  words  leapt  to  her 
mind,  her  tongue;  her  elbow  swinging  her  hand  to  her 
hip  with  the  jaunty  slap  of  a  bolero.  She  pretended  to 
have  been  sulking  instead  of  fainting,  and  with  a  little 
pout  she  looked  at  the  Jew  and  the  business  man. 

"As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  am  a  very  great  singer — by 
nature,  so  to  speak,  and  out  of  luck  at  the  moment,  which 
is  luck  for  you,  but  with  a  wonderful  future,  as  this 
charming  Italian  gentleman  recognized.  He,  you  see,  is 


The  Dish  of  Silver  157 

intelligent,  while  you  two  are  everything  that  fat  woman 
probably  called  you !" 

The  closing  impoliteness  of  her  speech  was  purposeful, 
and  intelligently  so,  for  she  knew  her  Jew  and  her  Cata- 
lonian,  and  meant  her  words  as  the  needed  lash  to  dogs 
in  the  danger-moment  when  they  do  not  know  robber 
from  mistress.  But  the  whip  she  had  chosen  was  unfor- 
tunate. She  should  have  thrown  any  crushing  thing  at 
them  rather  than  their  lost  prima  donna. 

"Which  way  did  she  go  ?"  demanded  the  business  man. 

"Yes,"  cried  the  Jew  instantaneously,  "which  way? 
That  is  a  devil,  but  that  is  also  a  nice  big  woman  !'* 

As  she  heard  the  echo  of  her  blunder,  and  a  great 
rushing  weight  seemed  to  sink  down  through  her,  drag- 
ging her  heart  after  it,  the  Maestro  spoke  swiftly.  It  was 
as  if  a  current  from  her  sensation  had  reached  and  urged 
him. 

"Yes,  friends,  very  much  of  a  nice  woman — too  much, 
if  you  are  wise,  and  if  this  girl  can  sing !" 

Her  heart  leapt  again,  almost  deathly  in  its  dizzy  reac- 
tion after  reaction;  but  the  ragged-voiced  northerner 
spoke  abruptly,  concisely — suddenly  redolent  of  his 
geography  as  a  bit  of  pink  earth  from  the  Catalonian 
Plain. 

"No !  I  have  decided !  I  like  decisions !  We  must 
find  her!  But  we  will  give  up  this  dirty  town  all  covered 
with  water.  Whether  we  find  her  or  not,  we  will  go  to 
Italy  to-night.  She  is  not  too  big  for  Italy — in  Italy 
they  listen,  they  do  not  look.  And  in  two  hours  we  must 
have  our  tickets !" 

"But,"  cried  the  Jew,  "can  we  find  her  in  two  hours? 
It  was  two  hours  last  time !  Can  we  this  time  ?" 

"We  know  her  habits !"  said  the  business  man,  tritely. 
"We  can  do  it  in  just  two  hours,  this  time — if  we  know 
which  way  she  started !" 

"Yes,"  cried  the  Jew,  "we  both  know  her  nice  large 
habits!  If  we  know  which  way!  Which  way  did  she 
go?" 


158  The  Great  Way 

And  they  both  turned  upon  Dulce,  as  thoughtless  of 
her,  save  for  their  important  purpose,  as  if  they  had 
never  encountered  her: 

"Which  way?     Which  way?" 

Droop-shouldered,  she  was  standing  in  their  midst  like 
a  stopped  mechanism,  a  thing  lately  animate,  of  which 
some  vital  part  had  deadened.  The  troublous  heart  had 
ceased  to  hamper  her,  as  if  after  its  mad  ricochetting  it 
had  found  the  place  it  had  sought — somewhere  outside 
her.  Her  mind,  instead  of  it,  was  madly  racing — in  a 
hot  course  of  logic  so  lightning-swift  that  its  vivid  flash 
showed  her  even  the  calmly  smiling  irony  of  her 
moment. 

She  knew,  now,  that  for  days  she  had  been  too  hungry. 
She  knew  that  if  she  did  not  earn  her  next  bread,  she 
must  beg  it.  She  knew — for  she  knew  every  cobblestone 
in  Cadiz — that  one  direction  of  the  little  street  led  into 
a  quarter  likely  to  twist  their  noses  into  a  circuitous  whirl 
that  might  send  them  twice  around  the  city.  She  knew 
that  her  answer  was  a  little  answer  between  herself  and 
God,  and  that  if  she  lied  only  He  and  herself  would  know 
it.  The  two  horrid  voices  of  the  Catalonian  and  the 
Jew,  for  in  their  simplicity  they  never  thought  of  her 
opportunity,  nor  even  saw  at  all  the  battle  in  her  eyes, 
were  still  rasping  in  her  ears,  with  growing  impatience 
pressing  her. 

"Do  you  not  hear  us?"  .  .  .  "Which  way?" 

With  a  little  catch  in  her  breath,  she  raised  her  arm. 

"That  way,"  she  said,  and  pointed  in  the  correct  direc- 
tion. 

And  the  two  were  gone  before  her  arm  had  dropped 
heavily  against  her  side  from  its  gesture — gesture  such 
as  a  soul  might  use  in  deliberately  sending  itself  to  hell 
and  someone  else's  to  heaven. 

Her  head  sank  slowly  forward,  and  she  stood  like  a 
wax  figure  that  had  begun  to  melt  in  the  sunshine. 

The  long,  childlike  Italian  came  up  behind  her  and  laid 
a  thin  hand  gently,  with  a  pitying  little  pat,  on  one  of 


The  Dish  of  Silver  159 

the  drooping  shoulders.  His  deep,  queerly  vibrant  voice 
spoke  as  one  understanding  nature  to  another. 

"Remember  the  great  Roman  singer  who  is  now  the 
world's  sensation.  She  started  in  the  street — selling 
flowers !" 

Dulce,  after  a  shiver,  staring  ahead  of  her  answered 
huskily. 

"/  started  in  the  street — selling  something  different !" 

He  turned  helplessly  away  and  disappeared  back  into 
the  little  theatre,  his  shrug  and  headshake  and  racial 
casting  out  of  hands  all  together  in  one  motion  saying  in 
Latin  wordlessness,  "I  am  sorry !" 

Alone  in  the  brilliantly  yellow  street,  she  shrank  back 
to  the  stucco  wall  of  the  building  and  leant  against  it. 
Quite  all  strength  was  not  gone  from  her,  but  the  last  was 
going,  seeming  to  seep  away  as  some  tangible  thing,  as 
tears,  might  do,  drop  by  drop,  eaten  up  by  the  heat  of  the 
street — heat  as  hungry  for  tears  as  she  was  for  food. 
Her  eyes  and  face  downcast,  her  cheek  against  the  wall, 
she  seemed  to  speak  to  the  sidewalk: 

"It  began  here.    Perhaps  it  is  to  end  here." 

And  slowly,  unresistingly,  for  she  knew  resistance  to 
be  unavailing  now,  she  sank  down,  down,  scratching  the 
white  cheek — and  at  the  pain  of  it,  her  only  defensiveness 
an  impulse  of  her  hands  back  of  her,  as  long  ago  against 
the  slippery  windows  of  the  Royal — till  she  was  a  sick 
mass  of  crazy  clothes  and  listless  flesh  huddled  upon  the 
baking  pavement,  her  fresh,  pretty  fan  and  handkerchief 
now  ridiculous  patches  of  cleanliness  standing  out  upon 
what  might  readily  have  been  a  pile  of  refuse  left  by  the 
surge  of  life  upon  immaculate  Cadiz. 

Cumulative  exhaustion  from  the  long  journeying,  from 
Barcelona  through  the  North,  and  back,  and  to  Paris,  and 
back,  back,  back,  like  a  creature  on  a  string,  the  physical 
miles  and  the  spiritual  tramp  of  it,  at  last  in  one  abrupt 
defiance  from  abused  body  and  recklessly  expended  soul, 
had  whelmed  and  overwhelmed  her.  That  the  soul  is  not 
inexhaustible  she  had  not  known  till  now,  and  now  she 


160  The  Great  Way 

knew,  and  knew  with  the  despairing  conviction  that  the 
lesson  had  been  taught  at  the  hopeless  and  bankrupting 
cost  of  finality.  She  knew  that  this  should  not  be  the 
end — even  of  this  episode;  that  she  still  might  plead  her 
cause  for  the  mere  little  chorus  part  which  was  all, 
after  all,  for  which  initially  she  had  come.  But  intuition, 
so  slow  and  seldom  to  discover  good  news,  so  strangely 
given  to  the  pointing  of  ill,  told  her  that  even  this  she 
could  not  now  secure,  that  having  refused  the  big  they 
would  refuse  the  little;  that  this  was  the  end,  not  alone 
of  this,  but  of  all  dream-materials,  for  life  itself  seemed  to 
swim  madly  before  her,  instead  of  standing  clear,  and 
upright,  and  normal — and  life  thus  distorted  is  of  the 
nature  of  death. 

But  there  was  still  enough  of  conscious  living  in  her 
for  her  mind  to  form  a  thought,  and  for  her  lips  to 
move,  if  not  for  sound  to  come  from  them,  and  as  her 
whole  being  had  so  long  been  a  protest,  she  protested 
now — not  against  God — any  god — but  to  Him,  and 
against  annihilation.  Dulce  lifted  up  her  wretched  eyesj 
and  prayed. 

"Holy  God,  I  have  been  impolite  to  You  sometimes. 
Indeed,  in  some  of  my  thoughts  I  have  been  quite — quite 
— hateful  about  You,  which  I  think  is  quite  likely  just 
the  opposite  of  Your  own  character.  Holy  God,  if  You 
ever  did  miracles,  You  can  still  do  them,  and  I  think 
from  the  way  I  feel  that  I  need  a  miracle  now,  that  there 
are  no  miracles  left  in  myself  to  trudge  ahead  with,  and 
that  if  I  am  to  tramp  one  step  further  it  is  time  for  a 
little  one  from  You.  Indeed,  no  matter  what,  it  would 
seem  very  big  to  me — any  little  miracle  that  would  keep 
me,  till  I  am  strong  again,  in  both  food  and — and  decency. 
Oh,  if  You  only  would,  I — Oh,  Holy  God,  I  do  not  wish 
to  seem  as  if  I  were  trying  to  make  a — a  bargain  with 
You,  but  the  idea  is  in  my  thoughts  by  instinct,  and  I 
might  as  well  be  truthful  to  You,  and  if  You  will  only 
do  some  big-little  thing  now  when  I  need  it  so,  I  will 
try  always  after  this  to  be  very  respectful  to  You  and 


The  Dish  of  Silver  161 

about  You,  and,  no  matter  what  it  might  be,  yes,  no 
matter  wliat,  no  matter  where  it  might  lead  me,  nor  what 
terrible  pain  it  might  bring  afterwards,  if  You  chose,  I 
would  pay  it  cheerfully,  and  not  complain,  so  You  sent 
it  now,  when  I  need  it  so,  I  promise  You !" 

The  silent  prayer,  with  its  pitiful  spirit  of  covenant, 
was  as  if  written  for  God  by  the  moving  lips  instead 
of  spoken,  and  therefore  not  so  soon  in  reaching  Him, 
for  the  little  street  stopped  there  surrounding  her  as 
soundless  in  its  ultra  heat  as  the  petition  in  its  ultra 
longing,  and  her  look  and  face,  after  an  instinctive 
glance  to  each  side,  sank  again  toward  the  merciless 
pavement.  A  confused  noise  sounded  in  her  ears.  It  was 
like  conflicting  voices,  and  she  thought  it  an  effect  of 
her  starvation — God's  only  answer.  But  it  died  &: 
and  a  moment  afterward,  startlingly  clear  in  its  clo  j 
to  her,  a  single,  and  moreover  a  singular  and  a  j 
voice  spoke. 

"Are — are  you  ill?" 

Dulce  looked  up,  and  as  if  the  automatic  acti  • 
mind  upon  body  were  more  powerful  than  purpose- 
purpose   of  prayer,   a   little  sound   escaped  her— ?  j'./^611 
queer  little  ghost  of  sound,  but  still  an  articu]'  fv 

so    fragrant    of    miracle   was    the    vision    L, "  1        sound, 
•  •        &  T.  •     f  i  that    met    her 

vision.     It  was,  in  fact,  only  a  young  g^j    , 

frailly   human,   who,   beset   by   voluble   Carij71*        '  n  .* 
had    escaped    them    and    their    importuning "  ,     guides, 
moment  since  into  the  seeming  solitude  of  th*  y.,,*1  a 

But  in  the  thoughts  that  had  framed  %CVS  des  et* 
little  petition  to  sovereign  Power  there  L  j  i  perate 
trite  pictures  so  very  natural  to  ide^0  erai, 

,  ..r       ,    .,  a    i«  14.     as   Ol   tjlat   Power 

and  its  attributes — flashing  thoughts  ^r  OT,~ki       , 

dry  lips  spelled  "miracle";  and  the  l^JS^g** 
her  now  looked  like  an  angel  to  her  irinking  feyS^.  .. 
Dulce's  mind,  forever  the  sensitively  imaginative  ai^t- 
mind,  the  beautiful  girl  was  entirely  o*  ^ovenly  colour^ 
— white,  and  pink,  but  only  most  delicately  pink,  u^^  gold, 
sun-gold,  as  if  her  soft  hair  were  a  halo,  and,  in  some 


162  The  Great  Way 

matter  or  manner,  silver,  yes,  silver,  even  if  this  seeming 
were  only  from  her  voice,  which  was  of  a  high  though  so 
quiet  timbre,  strange  and  unaccustomed  to  Dulce,  and 
which  spoke  again. 

"Yes,  you  —  you  are  ill  !     You  must  let  me  help  you  !" 

There  was  a  hesitant  distress  in  the  chiming  words. 

Dulce  did  not  answer.  She  could  not  —  as  yet,  though 
she  was  gathering  strength  to  do  so,  gathering  it  straight 
and  lulsomely  from  the  exquisite  presence  before  her. 
She  simply  gazed,  and  the  girl  gazed  back  at  her,  her 
eyes  pitiful,  fascinated  and  horrified,  but  quite  unwaver- 
ing through  her  little  space  of  continued  hesitancy  as  to 
what  she  should  say  next,  or  do.  It  seemed  to  Dulce,  as 
her  mind  cleared  itself  of  mystical  imaginings,  that  as  the 

«    va>8  of  earth,  not  heaven,  her  loveliness  and  her  tints 

_•     l     pSll  I 

S11"      i  ){  the  most  perfect  and  supreme  of  earthly  things  — 

wel       ly,  flowers.      In  her  whiteness,   and   the   dull   green 

nal?    'r  gown,  she  was  like  a  slender  lily  standing  there, 

°*      .    ig  a  little  —  the  very  flower  of  rapturous  sacredness, 

yer.     The  fair,  troubled,  gazing  eyes  were,  by  in- 

°  .P1^  e  thought,  forget-me-nots.     And  in  truth,  in  this 

j  traordinary  moment  something  deep,  and  signifi- 

t)oignant  beyond  that  moment's  situation  and 

cant,  a  -  passing  between  these  two  most  opposite 

its  needs,  was  f    ,     ,  &  ,     ,  ,  .       r 

r  rI>iAces  open-mouthed  worship  of  such  pure 

^tituted  a  heavy  tribute  of  frankincense  that 
sing  service  to  a  pauper  would  equalize,  and 
iier  part,  knew,  as  deeply  innocent  and  pure 

the  gi    '  yj  know  in  the  presence  of  the  deathly  or 

natures  feel  artci  .  r         ,  ,      ,        .  ,    •;     , 

•LI     *u«+  she  was  gazing,  through  the  rich  dark 
the  ternble,  that  » 

.  ^  ,7>  at  her,  upon  a  naked,  shivering,  and 
eyes  that  stared  u\ 


er  hands  had  unconsciously  reached  toward, 

_  quite  touchii£'  Dulce'     Xt  was  not  that  she  con- 

s«ously,  or  unconsci^51^'  shrank»  although  she  was  like 
virginity  itsel^—  t^nttflK  over  this  squalid  discard  of  the 
strppt.  -<5nehad  by  instinct  started  to  lift  her  up,  and  by 
instinct  paused  to  think  what  to  do  with  her.  Angels 


The  Dish  of  Silver  163 

can  afford  to  steep  their  hands  in  filth  and  to  lower  their 
wings  in  mud,  for  their  whiteness  is  fairer,  their  rainbow 
hues  are  more  brilliant  for  every  such  encounter. 

With  such  whiteness  and  such  brilliance  gathered  into 
her  gazing  soul  and  thence,  in  a  faint  reflection,  into  her 
voice,  Dulce  spoke. 

"It — it  is  a  strange  matter,  your  speaking  to  me, 
senorita !  More  strange  than  you  can  think.  Women, 
one  after  another,  are  forever  coming  up  behind  me — or 
before  me,  in  your  case ! — with  help  to  offer.  Just  when 
God  is  most  absent-minded  about  one,  it  is  strange  that 
women  should  not  be !" 

"Perhaps,  girl,  God  is  in  everything — even  women," 
said  the  girl  softly. 

"Ah,"  cried  Dulce,  and  a  cry  it  was,  for  the  voice  was 
stronger  now,  and  it  was  beautiful  with  earnestness,  "you 
are  right,  right!  He  is  in  you — that  I  know!  Oh,  I 
had  just  asked  Him  for  a  miracle,  and  it — you — came, 
and  I  had  made  Him  a  promise,  and  with  my  first  breath 
when  He  answered  me  I  broke  it !  But  I  did  not  mean 

to,  and  I  tell  Him  again  now  I  never  will,  really!  Oh " 

and  by  now  she  had  struggled  to  her  feet,  the  beautiful 
girl  assisting,  steadying  her — "if  you  would  help  me, 
though  this  is  my  native  town  of  which  I  know  every 
stone,  and  you  are  a  stranger,  whom  /  should  welcome 
and  help,  could  you  give  me,  or  get  me,  some  work?" 

"Work?"  exclaimed  the  girl.  "You  are  sick,  sick! 

Wait "  And  she  propped  her  into  the  corner  of  the 

theatre  doorway.  "I  was  very  cross  just  now  to  some 
guides,  and  now  I  need  one !"  And  she  ran  to  the  corner 
around  which  she  had  escaped  the  importunates  and  called 
"Man!  Man!"  the  "Hombre,  Hombre,"  tinkling  from 
her  like  an  excited  little  bell.  "That  one — you — the  big 
one!  You,  yes,  you!"  And  she  ran  swiftly  back. 

To  Dulce,  the  man  who  followed  her  looked  like  some 
figure  in  a  dream,  and  indeed  he  was  so  huge  that  one 
neither  ill  nor  imaginative  might  have  gasped  at  him,  a 
monster  of  humanity  resplendent  in  its  mere  lumbering' 


164  The  Great  Way 

size,  and  so  gorgeous  in  colours,  both  of  labourer's  cos- 
tume and  of  golden  and  olive  visage,  that  he  might  have 
stood  with  noble  appropriateness  for  the  Nation's  por- 
trait. His  vast  shadow  swept  along  the  yellow  house- 
fronts  and  seemed  to  swallow,  like  a  wave,  both  Dulce 
and  her  exquisite  Samaritana  as  the  girl  turned  to  him. 

"Lift  this  girl  up!  Carry  her  to  the  Hotel  de 
Francia !" 

"The  de  Francia !"  murmured  Dulce  as  he  swept  her 
like  a  shadow  itself  into  his  arms  and  holding  her  like  a 
light  fabric  across  them  lifted  her  to  what  seemed  to  her 
a  dizzy  height.  "In  the  Plaza  de  Loreto !  Oh,  two  streets 
lead  into  it — one  is  the  Rosario !  Oh,  make  me  the  favour 
to  go  in  by  the  right-hand  street!  There — there  are 
ghosts  in  the  Rosario !" 

"Hush,  hush !"  said  the  beautiful  girl,  soothingly.  "We 
will  not  go  by  the  Rosario — do  you  hear,  man?" 

"Gracias !"  gasped  Dulce,  and  "Work !"  she  whis- 
pered as  she  swooned  in  the  huge  arms  that  bore  her 
forward  in  their  strange  little  caravan.  "Work!  Some- 
thing to  do!" 


CHAPTER  XXII 

A   FLOWER    OF   THE   ENGLISH   SUN 

FULL  of  soft  shadows  and  curtain-filtered  sunlight,  the 
big  room  seemed  brooding  as  a  person  might  brood  in  the 
drowse  that  seems  by  nativity  itself  to  hang  like  some  fair 
and  delicate  nostalgia  over  Spain  in  the  hours  of  long 
spoke-like  solar  rays  that  follow  the  actual  siesta  hour. 
Grant  shadow,  and  air  will  respond  to  the  call  of  the 
senses  throughout  any  time  in  little  oceanic  Cadiz,  and 
this  chamber  was  cool  as  it  was  spacious  and  Spanish — 
though  it  was  Spanish  very  simple  and  Spanish  very  re- 
cent, for  as  drawing-room  of  the  most  expensive  suite  in 
the  de  Francia  it  had  been  furnished  as  if,  rather,  to 
emulate  the  dignified  but  trite  hotel  patio  from  whose 
galleries  it  let  off:  a  certain  elegance  with  the  quality 
in  quotation  marks  marked  the  room;  its  grand  piano 
was  more  grand  than  piano,  and  palms — truly  beautiful 
palms — flanked  the  pre-eminent  and,  because  of  its  weight, 
the  irremediable  position  of  this ;  and  over  against  the 
lovely  lace  curtains  of  the  tall  French  balcony-windows,  as 
if  intentionally  to  set  them  afire,  was  a  most  hideous, 
most  inhuman  equipage,  designed  in  fulsome  hardware 
as  an  ideal  representation  of  humanity  and  beauty — a 
plaster,  Habana-turbanned  negress,  life-size  as  far  as  she 
went,  which  was  fortuitously  only  to  her  bosom,  smiling 
from  coast  to  coast,  and  holding  at  the  end  of  a  decollete 
arm  a  cigar  with  a  gas-jet  in  it. 

Then  there  were  some  beauties  sheer  and  perfect  in  the 
dim  airy  room — on  the  piano,  in  a  crystal-like  bowl,  and 
lusciously  harmonizing  with  the  deep  drooping  green  of 
the  regimental  palms,  a  mass  of  rich  violets;  in  a  low 

165 


166  The  Great  Way 

chair  near  the  closed-out  little  balcony,  the  girl,  so  human 
yet  so  kindred  to  the  angels,  who  had  saved  Dulce's  life, 
or  reason,  or  perhaps  both,  or  anyway  so  Dulce  thought, 
a  week  ago. 

For  a  week  had  passed,  and  a  strange  week,  vague, 
like  a  fantasy,  yet  vivid,  and  never  to  be  forgotten,  for 
these  two  extraordinarily  opposite  creatures.  Two  bed- 
rooms opened  off  this  grandiose  parlour,  and  Dulce  was 
in  one  of  these — sleeping,  the  girl  thought,  but  she  was 
not  sleeping.  Dulce  was  well  now,  or — again — thought 
she  was,  and  insisted  so  as  emphatically  as  she  did  that 
she  had  been  saved  from  true  calamity,  from  "the  end," 
a  sad  end  of  some  kind  if  not  the  great  weird  adven- 
ture death,  by  her  new  chance  friend,  her  "miracle- 
friend." 

"Friend"  was  a  marked  and  a.  great  word  between 
them — it  had  happened  to  become  so,  several  days 
ago. 

That  Dulce  was  well,  or  nearly  so,  but  the  one  step  of 
intervening  nerve-weakness  away  from  as  excellent  health 
as  could  appropriately  be  for  such  a  mind  and  tempera- 
ment as  hers  when  without  conscious  progress  in  their 
soul  purposes,  was  a  fact  due  to  that  interim's  tender 
care,  and  less  to  that  care  itself  than  to  that  tenderness 
of  it,  which  she  had  drunk  in  like  an  instinctive  econo- 
mist, a  swiftly  recognizant  opportunist,  as  a  life-giving 
property,  without  heed  to  its  reason  or  circumstances,  and 
to  show  gratitude  for  afterward,  with  all  the  strength 
accrued  from  it.  And  it  was  without  stint  or  question, 
that  it  was  given.  What  the  girl  had  seemed  that  day 
and  that  long  communicative  moment  in  the  street,  when 
Dulce  had  gazed  up  with  thoughts  of  godly  magic  into  the 
turquoise  eyes,  she  not  only  had  continued  to  seem,  but 
was,  and  continued  to  be. 

Early,  in  the  periods  of  delirium,  as  logical  an  out- 
come of  that  vulgar  ailment  starvation  as  of  its  refined 
companion-trouble,  a  teased  and  over-striving  mind,  when 
sombre  fragments  of  the  tossing  history  thus  temporarily 


A  Flower  of  the  English  Sun          167 

culminating  murmured  from  the  strange  patient  or  gusted 
cruelly  from  her  in  louder,  less  moaning  words,  there  had 
been  for  the  ministering  girl,  by  no  means  inconsistently 
with  her  suffering  for  "her  suffering  guest,  a  pitying  yet 
thralling  fascination. 

Before  the  only  radical  departure  of  her  serene  life 
had  fetched  her  to  Spain,  this  girl  had  dreamed  of  Spain. 
It  had  been  her  Land  of  Dreams,  and,  in  them,  not  a  mere 
land  of  castles.  Although — or  perhaps  because — she  was 
scarcely  older  than  Dulce,  and  by  count  of  living  and  suf- 
fering enormously  younger,  she  had  clairvoyance — the 
clairvoyance  of  supreme  chastity  and  supreme  inexperi- 
ence, and  to  her  Spain  far  off  had  grown  so  real  that 
sometimes  she  had  told  herself:  "Without  having  seen,  I 
think  I  can  see  it  all:  By  such  intensity  of  sunlight,  its 
colours  are  crude,  by  such  density  of  shadows,  its  figures 
are  grotesque ;  but  within  the  colours  is  softness,  within 
the  figures,  reality.  That  land  possesses  horror,  fear, 
joy,  romantic  love.  Its  soul  is  sinister,  inevitable — and 
gay.  Nemesis  is  that  soul's  guardian.  If  it  took  on  the 
figure  of  a  girl,  she  would  be  a  dancing  girl.  But  I  see 
her,  too,  among  tones  that  are  mostly  very  grey  and  blue 
— moving  against  a  high,  oppressive  wall,  and  again,  I 
see  her  near  the  earth — that  gaunt,  hungry,  isolated 
Spanish  clay." 

Now,  having  in  so  swift  and  so  extraordinary  a  way 
known  Dulce,  and  having  been  to  her,  even  so  briefly, 
what  mothers  and  fathers  sometimes  cannot  be  to  their 
children,  she  might  have  said  to  her,  had  she  chosen  to 
express  the  thought :  "If  I  go  no  further,  look  no  more,  I 
have  seen  it  all." 

For  to  her,  Dulce  was  that  girl-figure,  the  Soul  of 
Spain.  The  fair  girl's  vision  was  now  a  living,  breath- 
ing, pulsating  thing,  beginning  with  the  vital  activity  of 
that  big  hot  tableau  in  the  little  shimmering  street  when 
the  guide  had  been  like  a  giant  sketch  of  Spain's  coloured 
Sierras  sweeping  up  toward  succour  her  frail  and  bat- 
tered offspring,  and  since  filled  out  and  out  with  picture 


168  The  Great  Way 

and  picture,  first  from  those  fierce  and  sometimes  ter- 
rible phases  of  delirium,  and  later,  with  the  nearer  and 
nearer  approach  to  lucidity  and  then  the  full  regainment 
of  a  clear  mind,  from  Dulce's  deliberate  speech — given 
always  with  a  bewitching  reticence  to  this  spotless  listener, 
yet  trenchant,  too,  from  her  insistent  honesty;  so  that 
with  very,  very  little  actually  told,  the  girl  knew  vir- 
tually, rather  than  practically,  all,  and  saw  it  as  she 
might  have  seen  a  painting,  comprised  of  a  series  of  paint- 
ings, wherein  were  places  without  names,  yet  vivid  by 
means  of  sharp  scenes,  little  vistas,  and  people  without 
histories,  but  the  more  fully  human  by  thus  seeming  to 
represent  just  elements,  feelings. 

Dulce  and  Dulce's  story  stretched  before  her  mind  as 
something  richly  similar,  perhaps,  to  America's  wondrous 
possession,  the  Gobelin  tapestries  of  Don  Quixote.  But, 
for  the  tints,  faint  tones,  of  this  treasure,  were  substi- 
tuted a  mysterious  dimness  of  connecting  background, 
against  which  stood  forth  almost  vehement  brilliances  of 
episode  and  of  significances,  of  which  the  sunlight,  doubly 
tense  and  yellow  by  force  of  shadows,  was  Sorolla's,  and 
of  which  the  things  of  shadow,  doubly  deep  and  ominous 
from  the  sunlight,  were  Zuloaga's.  Some  of  these 
shadows,  even  El  Greco,  and  certainly  Goya,  might  have 
painted,  so  full  of  ghosts  were  they — as  when  she  spoke 
again,  in  her  delirium,  of  the  little  street  of  the  Rosary 
so  near  to  them,  and  of  the  old  people  formerly  there 
whom  she  imagined  to  have  cursed  her,  while  sometimes 
into  the  sharp  sunlight  would  creep  a  little  soft  golden 
haze,  in  some  disconnected  aspirational  words  of  reach- 
ing after  unborn  art  or  of  yearning  over  still-born  love, 
that  Murillo  might  have  had  a  hand  in. 

And  to  the  nursing,  gently  resuscitating  "miracle 
friend,"  Dulce  had  become  in  turn  a  miracle,  even  before 
the  depth  and  lodestone  of  their  accidental  contact  had 
resolved  themselves  into  recognizance,  and  been  expressed, 
and  become  new  history — a  miracle  that  she  cherished  for 
its  nature,  shudder  as  she  had  sometimes  to  shudder  at 


A  Flower  of  the  English  Sun          169 

some  of  the  faces  of  the  new  facets  of  life  turned  to 
her. 

Nor  were  the  beautiful  girl's  care  and  labour  a  matter 
of  entire  ease,  of  the  charity — or  love — brought  a  little 
bit  this  side  the  stars  by  the  fact  of  being  without  sac- 
rifice. Though  she  was  her  own  mistress,  and  had  proven 
it  unnumbered  times  these  seven  days,  though  she  was 
theoretically  and  technically  free  to  pursue  this  some- 
what Quixotic  windmill-tilt  of  hers  in  the  dear  Spain  of 
her  now  fulfilled  imagination,  she  was  not  free  by  any 
means  as  Dona  Rina  had  been,  not  able  to  undertake  it 
and  proceed  with  it  without  encountering  other  mills  of  a 
wilder  and  a  more  windmillish  kind. 

For  the  flower-like  creature  was  indeed  accompanied 
by,  and  possibly  derived  a  part  of  her  exquisite  flower 
effect  from  contrast  with,  every  conceivable  growth  and 
luggage  of  trite  conventionality,  and  her  Accompanying 
Relative,  a  matron  all  in  capitals,  had,  at  the  entrance 
of  the  caravan,  risen,  astounded,  as  she  was  quite  natural 
and  right  in  doing  and  being;  and  then,  less  literally  but 
quite  as  actively  had  risen  more ;  and  more ;  and  more,  to 
heights,  dizzying  heights  to  observe,  of  motion,  emotion, 
intonation. 

This  lady  was  handsome,  with  a  certain  classical,  horse- 
like  handsomeness  that  implies  a  flattered  youth  and  ex- 
cuses much,  or  she  would  have  been  appalling,  and  in 
fact  she  was  considerably  appalling  anyway.  With  a 
Titanic  and  unconscious  strength,  she  carried  England 
about  with  her  everywhere  she  went,  and  her  exclusive 
Island  soul  abhorred  the  soul  of  the  Peninsular.  She  did 
not  love  Dulce,  either  instantly  or  gradually,  and  she 
could  not  understand  why  any  member  of  her  family 
suddenly  should. 

She  said  this,  which  was  not  at  all  unreasonable.  And 
she  also  said  that  she  could  not  understand  why  a  heathen, 
a  pagan,  a  Catholic,  a  guttersnipe,  a  gypsy,  should  be 
fetched  from  the  entrails  of  an  unheard-of  town,  and 
thrust  into  her  bed.  She  said  that  people  did  not  do 


170  The  Great  Way 

such  things,  that  the  Church  of  England  did  not  pre- 
scribe the  cleansing  and  burnishing  of  sewers  as  a  part 
of  the  casual  Christian  duty  of  gentlewomen.  She  said! 
that  it  was  her  young  relative's  romantic  notions  that  had 
brought  them  to  this  heinous  country  in  the  first  place, 
just  as  it  had  been  ridiculous  sentimental  nonsense  of 
that  young  relative's  that  had  made  her  study  Spanish, 
and  that  she  hoped  that  when  she  married,  which  she  fur- 
ther prayed  would  be  extremely  soon,  she  would  find, 
as  decent,  normal,  English  people  found,  that  life  was 
not  romance;  and  that  if,  in  the  meantime,  she  must  act 
like  a  book,  to  let  it  be,  for  God's  sake,  a  clean  book, 
by  the  Duchess,  and  not  a  rude  volume  by  Zola.  She 
said  that  she  now  regretted  every  day,  hour,  minute  of 
the  weeks  they  had  foolishly  waited  on  this  gruesome 
polka-dot  in  the  sea  for  a  telegram  before  starting  home 
for  England,  and  that  she  would  forthwith  start  for  Eng- 
land, alone  if  necessary;  that  the  perennial  madness  in 
the  family  was  not  in  her  side  of  it,  but  that  as  it  had 
broken  forth  with  violence  in  her  fair  kinswoman's  having 
gone  forth  alone  that  afternoon,  and  was  probably  con- 
tagious, she  might  as  well  be  raving  mad  herself  at  once, 
and  would  herself  go  out  alone,  and  sit  on  the  boat  until 
it  sailed — on  the  front  of  the  boat,  where  she  could  at 
least  look  forward  to  England.  And  she  had  lunged 
toward  her  hat,  a  hat  entailing  gestures,  and  had  gone 
out,  alone. 

And  this  she  had  done  every  successive  day,  except 
one,  the  one,  as  it  happened,  when  the  boat  unexpectedly 
sailed  and  another,  convenient  for  her  as  a  Cleopatra's 
barge,  had  taken  its  place  in  the  Bdhia. 

Under  the  girl's  delicate,  almost  sacred  exterior,  there 
must  have  been  something  of  a  nun's  almost  stubborn 
resistant  power,  for  none  of  the  volcanic  speech  each  day 
and  various  times  a  day  before  the  daily  exit,  words  and 
action  suggesting  both  Hercules  and  Herculaneum,  had 
for  one  instant  swerved  her,  while  to  all  of  it  she  gave 
only  gentle  rejoinder  or,  failing  strength  for  that,  equally 


A  Flower  of  the  English  Sun          171 

gentle  silence — until  to-day,  when  the  put-upon  aristo- 
crat had  at  the  apex  of  clamour  called  Dulce  a  Papist 
and  an  Anarchist.  And  a  little  exhausted  reproach  had 
crept  into  the  girl's  voice  and  sounded  in  her  supremely 
simple  protest: 

"Aunt !     Aunt !" 

"Niece!  Niece!  Niece!"  cried  her  aunt.  "O-o-o-oh, 
if  we  had  only  gone  to  the  Riviera!" 

And  with  this  euphonious  but  unscientific  co-ordina- 
tion of  thought  she  plunged  for  the  hat,  an  action  now  as 
polished  and  perfect  as  anything  to  be  seen  at  the  bull- 
fight. 

If  this  hat  was  not  made  of  fur,  and  feathers,  and 
cloth,  and  bows  of  ribbon,  and  embroidery,  and  glass 
fruit,  and  cotton  flowers,  and  velvet  foliage,  it  seemed  to 
be,  on  this  hot  day,  it  was  so  unmistakably  a  hat,  and  so 
round,  and  detailed,  and  cumulative.  And  she  went  to 
the  boat. 

Thus  the  girl  was  alone  in  the  big  brooding  room,  and 
thinking  Dulce  asleep,  was  resting — for  sometimes  Dulce 
had  slept  even  through  these  matters — happily  for  her 
even  comparative  peace  of  mind,  stirred,  as  it  was,  at  best, 
by  the  situation  of  which  she  was  the  unhappy — yet 
happy — cause. 

Yet,  only  a  moment  after  to-day's  start  for  the  boat, 
Dulce  came  into  the  bedroom  doorway,  and  stood  framed 
by  it — like  a  portrait,  an  uplifted  hand  against  the  frame, 
and  gazing  at  her  friend. 

The  girl  reclining  in  her  low  chair  did  not  yet  see  her. 
And  Dulce  saw,  at  its  full  and  in  this  quiet  light,  and  set 
off  suggestively  by  the  green  graceful  palms  and  purple 
massive  violets,  the  beauty  that  had  seemed  heavenly  to 
her,  and  come  to  her  as  from  heaven,  a  week  ago  this 
moment,  and  perhaps  more  perfect  now  than  at  any 
moment  of  her  consciousness  since:  the  broad,  low  brow, 
white  to  the  inevitable  thought  of  serenity,  and  minutely 
veined  as  lily-petals,  between  the  fine-spun,  slightly  curl- 
ing hair  of  positively  sunlight-colour,  and  the  slender 


172  The  Great  Way 

cheeks,  again  wax-like  and  white  as  lily-cups  yet  with 
hints  of  faintly  tinted  rose-petals;  the  lips,  like  an  open- 
ing and  deeper-coloured  rose ;  the  straight,  short  nose,  the 
blue  and  very  long-lashed  eyes;  the  slender,  very  slender 
body,  naiadesque,  and  dressed  again  in  delicate  green; 
and  somewhere  with  it  all,  seeming  to  hover  about,  im- 
palpably,  still  that  winging  impression  of  silver,  which 
would  seem  palpable,  a  colour  with  the  other  colours,  as 
soon  as  her  voice  was  heard,  brook-like  with  its  rising  and 
falling  liquid  inflections — a  voice  which,  like  the  wondrous 
complexion,  was  a  product  of  her  peculiar,  damp-climated 
island  nativity,  that  of  the  sharp,  blond-producing  North 
made  fecund  by  the  whim  of  the  gracious  Gulf  Stream. 
She  was  entirely  sylvan,  while  so  unmistakably  the  result, 
indelible,  of  the  intensively,  cultivatedly  racial. 

And  her  soul  was  like  her,  her  life  was  like  her, 
beautiful.  She  would  presumably  have  always,  as  she 
had  always  had,  a  happy,  peaceful  life;  for  she  was  of 
such  a  nature  that  even  when  Great  Sorrow  would — as  he 
would — stand  near  her,  she  would  not  know  it.  He  would 
pass  her  by  quite  as  if  he  were  a  darkened  ship,  blinded 
by  her  beauty  on  the  sea — because  close  as  she  would  be 
to  him  he  would  turn  his  face  away  from  her,  made  pitiful 
by  her  beauty.  She  would  take  Sorrow  into  her  very 
house;  but  she  would  never  know  the  name  of  her  guest. 

Such  is  the  impregnable  armour  of  unconscious  saints. 
For  to  know  that  she  gave  pain,  inevitable,  deep  pain,  to 
some  loved  fellow-being,  would  have  been  utterly,  irre- 
vocably destructive  to  her.  The  most  trenchant  of  all 
professed  readers  of  the  human  heart,  most  epicureanly 
precise  of  all  painters  of  the  mysterious  human  mind,  has 
written  that  fine  temperaments,  without  fine  surroundings, 
cease  to  exist.  This  is  absolutely  true.  And  given  the 
circumstance  of  known  sorrow  from  herself  to  one  she 
loved,  a  kindred  phenomenon  would  have  occurred  upon 
this  girl.  The  most  sordid  environment  would  not  have 
altered  her — she  would  have  altered  it.  But  certainty 
that  she  could  represent  pain,  that  she  comprised  it,  would 


A  Flower  of  the  English  Swn          173 

constitute  for  her  a  bitter  setting  of  the  whole  world, 
and  would  in  some  sort  kill  her,  for  change  by  its  very 
nature  is  gradual  death,  just  as  it  is  immediate  life,  and 
she  would  thereupon  become  so  replete  a  thing  of  sorrow 
herself  that  she  would  no  longer  possibly  be  Isabel. 

That  was  her  name,  from  her  mother,  a  rare  patrician 
Isabella  who  thought,  perhaps,  the  rich,  sweet  old- 
fashioned  title  too  staidly  regal  for  the  delicious  blossom 
the  girl  from  her  babyhood  had  been,  and  had  altered  it  to 
its  crystalline  form  at  her  happy  christening. 

All  this  spiritual  signification  of  Isabel  and  her  nature 
Dalce  had  not  analytically  discerned,  yet  had  felt,  and 
was  feeling  again,  more  than  ever  poignantly,  now,  as  she 
gazed,  and  was  sensitively,  fulsomely  appreciating, 
through,  in  turn,  her  own  clairvoyance — a  clairvoyance 
quite  different  from  Isabel's,  that,  namely,  of  all  women 
who  have  known  passion,  save  some  clodden  few  who  can 
drink  fire  without  tasting  it. 

But  it  was  with  the  lovely  name  that  her  conscious 
thoughts  were  chiefly  engaged,  while  this,  again,  was  not 
the  subject  of  her  first  words.  Almost  hating  to  stir  the 
fair  pensive  tableau,  she  said  softly : 

"You  said  to  me  I  might  put  on  this  pretty  dress  !'* 

With  a  little  start,  of  surprise,  and  a  second  one,  of 
sheer  pleasure  at  the  unexpected,  doorway-framed  picture, 
the  girl  turned,  and  returned  her  gaze. 

Pale  a  little,  and  the  dark  eyes,  dark  hair  thus  a  little 
darker,  more  mysterious;  weak  just  a  little,  so  that  the 
posture,  from  the  uplifted  hand  against  the  frame,  held 
just  a  trace  of  totally  unaware  appeal;  and  in  this  lacily 
delicate  gown  of  Isabel's,  she  was  a  supreme  meta- 
morphosis of  the  drearily  garbed  body  and  hungrily 
staring  soul  of  a  week  ago.  All  that  eager  soul  was 
there,  but  it  now  came  forth  from  the  eyes  shining  with 
hope  and  faith  instead  of  glittering  with  despair;  and  in 
the  supposedly  simple  frock,  in  which  she  had  earnestly 
striven  to  look,  and  thought  she  did  look,  exceedingly — 
Cadizianly — "neat,"  and  "clean,"  she  was  instead  an 


174  The  Great  Way 

epitome  of  piquing,  half-buoyant,  half-languorous, 
negligent  femininity.  The  dress  was  half-low  necked;  its 
colour,  like  Isabel's  cheeks,  was  waxen  lily-white,  with  a 
suggestion,  just  a  suggestion,  of  colour-of- rose-petal.  It 
was  indeed  an  ostensibly  simple  frock,  most  simple.  But 
it  was  Isabel's — and  it  had  a  grace,  a  fugitive  elegance, 
an  intention,  that  visualized  titled  sempstresses  named 
Lilith,  Rosamund,  and  probably  Lallaga.  And  without 
the  faintest  thought  of  genius,  Dulce  had  taken  from 
their  soft  little  balbriggan  bag  and  hung  around  her 
neck  the  long  string  of  Astarte  beads — simply  because 
their  colours  in  the  sunlight  were  like  those  of  Isabel's 
eyes,  and  this  fact  she  meant  to  mention. 

Thus  around  her  neck,  in  the  daylight,  and  moreover 
the  daylight  of  this  room  at  this  moment,  their  colours 
were  almost  faint,  they  were  so  tender,  unassertive,  and 
chalk-like,  as  if  they  were  only  a  thought  that  had  been* 
put  into  material  expression  with  pastels.  They  might 
have  been  composed  mainly  of  exceedingly  old  blues  and 
most  diluted  greens,  with  here  and  there  several  small 
pottery  ones  standing  forth  in  dull,  literal  purple,  to 
accentuate  the  contented  delicacy  of  all  the  rest. 

To  those  eyes  that  were  enough  like  turquoises  to 
resemble  them,  Isabel's  eyes,  Dulce  now  was  still,  as  in 
the  foreign  girl's  fantastic,  panoramic  vision  of  her,  the 
Soul  of  Spain,  but,  by  her  changed  and  diverse  mood  and 
raiment,  that  soul  in  a  still  further  phase  and  sphere. 

And  truly  as  she  stood  thus  in  the  framing  doorway 
as  upon  the  threshold  of  some  new  and  spirit-intriguing 
episode,  only  one  Spanish  artist,  living  or  dead,  and  he 
Spain's  most  debauchedly  romantic,  could  have  sufficiently 
painted  her — Fortuny.  And  he  would  probably,  if  pos- 
sible, have  rushed  back  from  heaven,  chancing  hell  over 
again,  to  do  it — and  instantly,  before  she  could  budge 
from  her  position.  The  long  gaze  between  these  two 
would  have  supplied  his  subject,  with  its  quality  of  the 
imminant  to  fill  his  ubiquitous  need  of  the  engaging.  The 
high,  light  colours  of  Isabel's  beauty  and  that  beauty 


A  Flower  of  the  English  Sun          175 

itself  would  have  weighted  with  him  to  the  measure  of  a 
whole  crowd  of  meticulous  figures  in  any  costume-period. 
The  palms,  the  violets,  and  the  tall  French  windows,  which 
he  would  have  hurled  open  to  let  in  the  delicately  scrolled 
balcony  and  a  flood  of  gold,  were  literally  there  to  his 
taste  as  to  his  hand.  And  over  against  his  centering 
crescendo — Dulce — the  big  grotesquerie  of  the  grinning 
plaster  negress,  disseminated  through  his  medium  into  a 
myriad  suggestions  and  shadowy  potentialities,  would 
have  nearly  satisfied — for  once — his  completely  insatiable 
imagination.  Finished,  he  would  have  done  what  he  prob- 
ably always  longed  to  do  and  that  as  presumably  his  art 
had  never  let  him  do  because  he  had  never  actually  seen  it, 
though  he  had  hunted  for  it  travelling  as  a  child  through 
the  Catalonian  hills  with  his  tinted  puppet-show  as  had 
Dulce  with  the  drama  hidden  inside  her — a  co-ordinated 
and  concrete  dream  of  Spain  and  Venice,  Paris,  and  the 
tropics. 

She  stepped  from  the  framing  doorway  and  came  across 
to  Isabel.  In  their  long  look  of  exchanged  admiration, 
each  quite  unconscious  of  it  in  the  other,  her  pretty 
speech  about  the  pretty  dress  had  been  forgotten,  for- 
gotten, too,  Isabel's  intended  chiding  of  her  having  with- 
out permission  dressed  at  all.  Slipping  down  to  a  sitting 
posture  on  the  floor  before  Isabel's  low  chair,  Dulce  took 
her  hands,  and  said  as  simply  as  she  had  spoken  before: 

"I  want  to  ask  something  of  you.  Another  favour. 
In  your  case,  always  another.  It  was  not  quite  so  in 
Dona  Rina's  case — because  I  did  not  feel  so.  It  was 
my  fault,  you  see,  and  not  dear  Dona  Rina's.  But  I  have 
learned  much  since — from  you.  There  is  still  more  to 
learn  from  this  experience,  much  more,  something  larger 
and  deeper.  But  anyway,  I  have  had  to  learn  already — 
against  a  certain  kind  of  pride  of  mine,  perhaps — that 
there  are  some  things,  and  some  times  when,  it  is  right 
to  take  and  take,  whether  or  not  one  can  repay.  Well, 
in  a  little  room  I  had  once,  in  another  city  from  here — the 
little  room — I  called  my  mignonettes,  that  I  had  on  the 


176  The  Great  Way 

window-sill — for  I  was  always  naming  things,  you  know 
— 'flowers  of  the  sun.'  I  have  happened  to  be  thinking 
of  them  lately — and  I  have  named  you  my  'Flower  of  the 
English  sun.'  " 

"How  lovely !"  exclaimed  Isabel. 

"But  the  favour  I  wanted  you  to  make  me,"  Dulce 
went  on,  "is  for  you  to  let  me  call  you — by  your  own 
name." 

"Oh — do!"  cried  the  girl,  with  glad  impulse. 

"It  is  the  name  of  a  Plaza,  big  and  full  of  sunlight, 
here  at  home  in  little  Cadiz,"  said  Dulce,  "beautiful  Cadiz, 
which  you  have  made  'home'  to  me  for  the  second  time. 
And  the  Plaza  Isabel  has  only  sunlight,  no  darkness,  in 
my  memory — as  you  will  always  have — Isabel." 

On  her  reference  to  "memory,"  its  apparent  thought 
of  their  parting,  a  little  cloud,  swiftly  followed  by  sun- 
shine again,  as  might  have  been  characteristically  in  that 
Plaza,  and  here  as  from  a  happy,  secret  thought  of  her 
own,  came  into  this  Isabel's  blue  eyes;  but  she  only  said: 

"I  am  glad  you  wished  this — and  it  is  the  right  thing, 
quite,  after  what  we  have  discussed,  and  followed,  about 
the  word  'amiga* — Dulce." 

In  one  of  their  first  clear  talks,  and  after  Dulce's 
voluntary  confidences,  made  in  a  few  sweeping,  graphic 
strokes,  with  the  whole  arm,  as  it  were ;  and  upon  their 
first  embarrassed  direct  reference  to  the  trials — of  and 
from — the  classical  aunt,  made  necessary  at  last  by  a 
more  than  routine  uproar,  howsoever  followed  by  the  rou- 
tine departure  which  always  gave  their  communion  just  a 
fragrant  touch  of  the  delightful  flavour  of  forbidden  fruit, 
Dulce,  in  the  refreshing  after-silence,  had  said: 

"Aside  from  these  present  troubles,  I  would  like  to 
ask  you  something.  It — it  is  indeed  something  quite  im- 
portant to  me.  Has — has  your  Aunt  Gibraltar  some- 
thing especially  to  do  with  the  word  'Society'?  Some- 
thing, so  to  speak,  intimate  to  do  with  it — intimate  in  a 
nice  sense,  of  course?  If  you  do  not  see  what  I  mean, 
take  that  word,  'Society';  and  if  you  drew  a  picture  of 


A  Flower  of  the  English  Sun          177 

it,  as  an  American  Indian  would,  instead  of  writing  it 
down,  would — would  she  be  that  word,  with,  let  us  say, 
a  great  exclamation  mark?" 

"I — I  think  perhaps  she  would!"  Isabel  had  ventured. 
And  Dulce  had  sighed: 

"I  begin  to  see  my  difficulties,  then!" 

And  Isabel's  gently  urging  questions  had  brought  from 
her  a  short  but  vivid  description  of  one  of  the  elements 
of  her  big  manifold  purpose  in  life,  full  of  wonderfully 
exposing  lights  and  of  thrill  for  the  listener,  till  Dulce, 
with  a  little  fluttering  tone  of  sad  finality,  had  concluded : 

"You  and  your  aunt,  you  see,  are  Society.  Yes,  you 
too.  You  are  easily  satisfied,  you  dear,  dear  woman,  but 
that  is  just  your  individual  character,  which  even  so  is 
just  as  much  the  opposite  of  mine  as  hers  is,  and  which 
even  so,  and  granting  even  better  birth  than  such  as  I 
have,  would  make  you  befriend  me,  but  forbid  you  to  be 
my  friend." 

Isabel  had  been  silent,  but  it  was  because  tears  were 
gathering  in  her  eyes,  whose  light  gleamed  through  them, 
and  when  she  spoke  the  words  were  swift  and  short. 

"It  will  not  and  it  shall  not !" 

The  speech  and  its  manner  wefe  her  one  adoption, 
indeed,  achievement,  of  vehemence,  startling  by  contrast 
with  its  source — the  vehemence  of  a  calm  nun,  which 
made  it  like  lightning  in  a  cloister. 

In  that  moment  her  aunt's  cause,  if  it  had  ever  been 
potential,  even  in  possibilities  for  the  future,  had  been 
forever  lost. 

And  also  from  that  moment,  to  the  sick  and  struggling 
Dulce,  now  ill,  but  forever  struggling,  Dulce  the  creature 
of  blood  and  of  imagination,  who  sought  by  instinct,  and 
inexhaustibly,  for  the  meanings  that  usually  underlie, 
and  are  so  often  hidden  by,  the  episodes  and  the  relations 
of  life,  just  as  she  did  regarding  its  elements,  which  in 
truth  are  always  closely  concerned  with  the  episodes  and 
the  contrasts,  to  this  Dulce  this  "miracle"  of  episode  so 
blindly  prayed  for  in  the  street  and  so  swiftly  granted, 


178  The  Great  Way 

became  a  miracle  of  relationship,  and  with  its  elemental 
meaning  clear  to  her. 

More  than  in  the  case  of  Lola,  human,  and  real,  and 
warm  as  that  had  been;  more,  even,  far  more,  than  in 
the  kind,  the  beautifully  gracious  instance  of  Dona  Rina, 
her  glowing  brain's  interpretation  of  this  thing  was  the 
idea,  definitively  idealized,  of  friendship,  whose  Idea  itself, 
ideally  represented  by  the  beautiful  and  so  beautifully 
confessed  friend  before  her,  took  on  such  new  scope,  such 
deeper  and  such  poetical  significance  for  her  that  Isabel, 
swiftly  if  gradually,  and  permanently,  was  to  be  hence- 
forth in  Dulce's  life  not  the  pretty  ballade  of  Lola;  not 
the  story,  colourful  and  generous,  which  in  its  highest 
interpretation  in  Spain  and  in  Spanish  would  have  been 
the  romance  of  Dona  Rina;  but,  even  if  the  short  huge 
word  did  not  present  itself  to  her,  the  Epic  of  Friendship 
— an  epic  that  exists  only  in  hearts  and  souls,  and  has 
never  been  written  because  it  must  comprise  not  the  soul- 
flower  of  a  single  nation,  but  the  blossom  of  an  element  of 
the  entire  world,  and  universal  language  is  not  yet. 

From  this  she  had  drunk  health,  faith  renewed;  from 
this,  hope,  strength — strength,  she  thought,  to  leave  her, 
when  that  sad  moment  of  aching  severance,  sadly  and 
achingly  nearing  and  necessary,  she  supposed,  should 
come;  strength  not  very  bodily  as  yet,  but  enough  so, 
she  gladly  knew,  not  only  to  work  again,  but  to  get 
work — as  she  had  done,  for  instance,  not  so  very  long 
ago  in  the  steel-works  at  Toledo — crossing  swords  to 
do  it! 

And  she  supposed  that  sad  moment  indeed  sadly  near, 
this  afternoon. 

"Isabel,"  she  softly  said,  prettily,  tenderly  articulating 
the  name  for  the  second  time,  "you  came  to  me  as  an 
answer  to  a  prayer,  in  which  I  had  told  God  that  I  would 
cheerfully  bear  afterward  any  pain  growing  out  of  its 
answering ;  and  as  if  He  had  all  your  favouritism  for  me, 
the  road  runs  backward  in  this  case — I  am  always  giving 
pain — if  only  small  pains — to  you.  Here  have  I  asked, 


A  Flower  of  the  English  Sun          179 

and  you  given  me,  a  special  favour,  the  moment  when  I 
have  just  driven  your  nearest  relative  away  from  you!" 

"She  will  come  back,"  said  Isabel. 

"It  is  quite  dangerous,  this  time,"  said  Dulce.  "I 
think  the  boat  really  does  sail  to-night!" 

"She  will  come  back,"  said  Isabel  again.  "They  will 
not  give  her  supper  on  the  boat.  We  know  that." 

"Then,  too,  if  your  telegram  should  come  to-day,  you 
might  want  to  catch  the  boat  yourself,"  continued  Dulce, 
"and  you  could — for  one  of  the  things  I  am  clever  about 
is  packing,  and  that  much,  at  least,  I  could  do  for  you  in 
repayment,  with  the  idea  of  it,  I  mean,  before  I — I  lose 
you." 

Again  the  light  as  of  a  happy  secret  thought  came  into 
Isabel's  eyes,  but  as  yet,  again,  she  did  not  speak  it. 

"Nothing  remains  to  be  paid,"  she  said,  gently.  "At 
first,  you  see,"  and  she  pointed  towards  the  bedroom  from 
which  Dulce  had  come,  "I  studied  you  as  if  you  were 
some  new-found  book  of  foreign  matters " 

Dulce,  with  no  thought  of  interrupting  her,  yet  inter- 
rupted, with  a  little  crying  echo  of  the  words : 

"As  if  I  were  'some  new-found  book  of  foreign 
matters' !" 

"Yes,  that  I  had  happened  to  pick  up  in  that  chance 
little  street,  and  bring  home  to  look  for  treasures  in ;  and 
nothing  can  remain  to  be  paid  because  by  now  I  have 
found,  not  printed  treasures,  though  similar  things  I  did 
find,  but  a  living  treasure — a  real,  a  living  friend.  That 
is  the  way  I  think  and  feel  about  it." 

Dulce  pressed  her  hands,  with  tender,  clinging 
warmth;  but  though  an  answer  to  that  treasure-speech 
was  in  her  heart  and  mind  as  in  the  hands,  her 
first  words,  and  ones  that  came  after  a  long  moment  of 
pensive  silence,  held  to  the  thought  of  the  phrase  that 
she  had  echoed. 

"  'Books  of  foreign  matters,'  I  have  noticed,  are  usu- 
ally little  red  books,  as  stout  as  they  are  red,  sometimes, 
but  somehow  in  my  mind  they  have  always  the  word 


180  The  Great  Way 

'little'  about  them.  And  your  speaking  about  me  that 
way,  a  way  I  truly  understand,  dear  Isabel,  has  made 
me  think  again  of  one  of  my  special  odd  thoughts  that 
I  have  sometimes:  that  I  would  like,  sometime  or  other, 
to  make  myself  into  a  little  book — a  little,  very  fashion- 
able, expensive  red-covered  book.  And  just  your  having 
said  that  about  me,  makes  me  determined  now  that  some- 
time I  will.  I  mean,  as  you  right  away  know,  of  course, 
just  a  little  book  in  which  to  put  down  some  of  my 
thoughts.  And  in  such  a  case,  it  would  indeed  be  a  little 
book  of  'foreign  matters'  in  a  sense.  One  of  my  thoughts, 
Isabel,  dear,  such  an  important  thought,  is  of  the  great, 
difference  God  has  made — in  Society,  let  us  say  again — 
between  men  and  women.  To  begin  with  made  to  be, 
yes,  though  about  Society,  perhaps  just  allowed  to  be, 
not  entirely  approving  it  Himself.  Only  that  would  be 
not  a  foreign  matter,  would  it,  but  a  common  matter  to 
the  whole  world,  would  it  not?  So  for  my  book,  meaning 
me,  the  thought  I  think  I  would  have  to  put  down  for  all 
that  would  be,  Isabel,  that  men  do  not  suffer  at  the  closing 
of  doors.  And  women  do.  We  women.  Yes,  I  am  quite 
sure,  now,  that  sometime  I  will  do  that — if  for  no  more 
than  to  make  my  handwriting  somewhat  more  stylish  than 
it  is!  An  elegant  little  red  book.  But  by  the  time  I 
could  do  all  that,  no  one  could  buy  me!  As  for  the 
closing  of  doors,  dear  Isabel,  you  spoke  of  finding  treasure 
in  me;  but  ah,  what  treasures  you  keep  finding  for  me, 
to  gather  strength  and  faith  from  when — when  a  door 
is  closed.  Already  I  must  be  having  and  be  strengthen- 
ing that  thought,  for  the  time  when — oh,  when  you  are 
gone!" 

Once  more  the  curious  happy  light  shone  in  Isabel's 
eyes. 

"You  are  going  with  us,"  she  said  quietly. 

"Oh!"  cried  Dulce. 

It  was  a  little  cry,  a  little  gasp;  her  hands  in  a  swift 
impulse  caught  Isabel's  again.  In  the  brilliant  flash  of 
its  surprise,  she  saw  not  only  all  its  delight  for  her,  but 


A  Flower  of  the  English  Sim          181 

all  the  girl's  temerity  in  it:  its  problem,  its  difficulties, 
magnifying  the  gift.  But  her  rapture  was  short-lived. 
She  dropped  the  hands ;  her  eyes  turned  away. 

"I — I  would  go  to  the  end  of  the  earth  with  you  or 
for  you,"  she  said,  "to — to  any  end — except — England. 
You  see,"  and  there  was  a  little  tremulousness  in  her 
voice  as  in  the  eyes  with  which  she  met  Isabel's  wondering 
gaze,  "you  see,  it  is  the — the  great  angry  place  that  he 
has  gone  to !" 

"Ah,"  cried  Isabel,  "my  poor  dear,  I  understand!  I 
do!  But,"  and  her  voice  grew  light  again,  "England  is 
so  big,  and  London,  why — bigger!  You  do  not  realize! 
And,"  she  continued  swiftly,  eagerly,  "here  is  the  vastly 
important  part  of  it.  When  I  am  married  I  will  be  very 
wealthy.  You  knew  that,  did  you  not?" 

"Yes,"  said  Dulce,  "and  I  am  happy  for  you  in  that 
thought,  because,  as  I  can  now  know  without  asking,  you 
marry  because,  and  only  because,  you  love.  Without 
that,  and  with  the  money,  it  would  be  wrong — as  wrong 
as — as  something  else,  for  instance,  though  'Society' 
would  not  say  so — would — would  just  silently  lie  about  it. 
I  was  worried  at  first.  But  now  I  am  very,  very  happy 
about  it."  This  was  little  of  all  she  had  thought,  dreamed, 
hoped;  for  the  selfishness  of  love  that  inclined  her  to 
make  her  own  love  the  whole  universe,  had  given  way  com- 
pletely when  she  dreamed  of  happiness  for  Isabel,  demand- 
ing a  million  perfections  in  the  man  who  should  have  her. 
She  had  understood  that  the  expected  telegram  was  to  be 
from  him,  and  that  presumably  he  was  to  follow  it,  from 
some  far  place,  to  fetch  her — a  hint  of  chivalry  that  she 
approved.  She  had  venturingly  hoped  that  this,  and  her 
own  leaving  of  Isabel,  might  overlap  just  a  little,  and 
had  even  treated  herself  to  a  small  imagined  scene  alone 
with  him  in  which  was  made  clear  that  henceforth  one 
of  her  unfailing  life-purposes  would  be  to  see  that  dire 
doom  be  his  unless  he  proved  himself  impossibly  worthy 
of  her  friend.  She  would  not  object,  for  Isabel's  own 
beatific  sake,  to  his  being  rather  old — in  fact,  quite  old, 


182  The  Great  Way 

say  twenty-eight  or  even  twenty-nine;  but  he  must  have 
no  other  flaw. 

"And  that  'Society,' "  said  Isabel,  "has  to  do  with 
it  too.  You  see,  the  fact  of  that  great  wealth  will  greatly 
increase  my  duty  toward  Society,  and  first,  yes,  first  of 
all,  dear  Dulce,  there  is  that  great  voice — of  yours." 

Dulce  was  crying  softly,  but  her  bravery  grew  with 
her  tears. 

"No,  Isabel,"  she  said.  "You  will  remind  me  of  what 
I  myself  have  just  said — that  sometimes  it  is  right  to 
take  and  take.  But  not  that.  Not  in  my  case.  From 
you  if  from  anyone,  but  that,  not  even  from  you.  I  admit 
that  it  is  different  again  from  Dona  Rina,  but  even  so, 
my  feeling  that  that  must  be  all  from  my  own  work  is 
deeply  beyond  depth  a  part  of  my  Gran  Via." 

"I  will  persuade  you,"  said  Isabel  with  quiet  confidence. 
"And  if  I  cannot,  he  will.  He  would  wish  it,  just  as  he 
would  wish  me  to  have  violets  here,  my  favourite  flower, 
while  he  has  to  be  away,  just  as  if  he  were  here  to  give 
them — which  is  the  reason  I  have  them ;  he  would  wish  it, 
this  other,  bigger  thing,  because  he  is  the  Ttmd  that  would 
— a  man  such  as  I  know  you  would  wish  for  me,  good, 
tender,  gentle  in  his  thoughts.  You  will  learn  this." 

.  The  knowledge  that  she  might  share  even  briefly  in 
this  part  of  Isabel's  life  brought  Dulce's  hands,  wet  now 
with  warm  tears,  again  upon  Isabel's. 

"You  have  given  bountifully,  given  for  both  of  you, 
in  offering,"  she  said.  "And  before  that,  you  have  given 
gold  and  gold  like  that,"  and  she  rose,  now,  and  walked 
across  to  the  great  French  windows  and  drew  them  wide 
open,  flooding  the  room  with  sunlight,  "in  the  fact,  my 
Isabel,  of  your  friendship,  that  I  can  have  you  for  my 
friend  without  danger  to  you  because  I  am,  oh,  so  truly, 
no  longer  what  I  was.  You  know,  Isabel,  women  like 
me — the  former  me — are  supposed  to  ruin  everything  they 
touch.  There  is  a  terrible  old  proverb  about  it.  It  says : 
'She  kills  herself.  But  first  she  kills  her  parents,  friend, 
and  lover.'  " 


A  Flower  of  the  English  Sun          183 

Isabel  shuddered — and  from  memory,  for  she  had 
heard  it,  elusively,  read  out  from  this  her  "book  of  foreign 
matters,"  fragmentarily,  in  that  period  of  delirium, 
among  several  things  in  very  truth  new-found  to  the  wide- 
eyed  ministering  girl  which  had  made  her  exclaim  to  her- 
self, involuntarily,  "What  terrible  words  !" 

"And,"  continued  Dulce,  "perhaps  I  did  kill  my  par- 
ents !  They  lived  right  out  there,"  and  she  pointed  across 
the  little  plaza,  "in  that  little  street,  the  Rosario.  I 
have  seen  my  sister,  once,  since — since  I  walked  out  of 
it.  One  night  in  Sevilla,  when  I  had  come  from  the 
Caridad  where  I  had  seen  a  wonderful  Murillo  that  re- 
minded me  of  home  here,  and  of  how  I  had  walked  out, 
that  very  night  she  saw  me  dancing  in  the  Seville  streets, 
trying  to  keep  such  heavy  thoughts  out  of  my  feet,  and 
she  would  not  speak  to  me;  and  when,  in  a  kind  of  hot 
pride,  I  threw  away  my  dance  and  persisted,  because, 
after  all,  the  little  family  money  that  equally  shared  would 
have  kept  me  out  of  the  convent  and  from  the  Trudge 
Market  too,  had  gone  to  get  her  married  in  Sevilla,  she 
turned  on  me,  and  said:  'TJiey  are  dead.  You  killed 
them,  you.  They  died  of  shame!'  Sisters !  Are  brothers 
like  that,  I  wonder?  Somehow,  I  think  not — another 
difference  between  men  and  women.  Anyway,  I  did  not 
believe  what  she  said,  or  pretended  to  myself  I  did  not, 
for  I  had  not  heard  the  proverb  then.  But  I  tell  you  I 
have  learned  it  since  by  heart,  and  that  was  why,  when 
you  rescued  me  that  day,  of  all  the  streets  in  Spain  I 
could  not  bear  to  be  carried  through  the  Rosario,  the 
little  street  of  the  Rosary.  I  am  not  afraid  of  ghosts — 
save  such  ghosts.  There  they  would  have  stood,  like 
Society — that  great  demanding  Society  that  has  to  be 
satisfied!" 

Her  hands  had  lifted  with  the  words,  and  with  the 
last,  one  of  them  fell  in  a  vivid  gesture  against  her  bosom, 
and  it  caught  her  fingers  in  the  rope  of  forgotten  beads. 

"Ah,"  she  cried,  her  voice  altering  to  a  swift  gladness, 
and  her  hands  lifting  the  fair  things  out  before  her  in  the 


184  The  Great  Way 

sunlight,  "here,  Isabel,  here  is  a  different  kind  of  rosary, 
here  is  the  part  of  me  that  never  has  been  bought  or  sold ! 
I  put  them  on  because  they  are  the  colour  of  your  eyes. 
Think,  they  are  thousands  of  years  old,  and  never  have 
they  changed  hands  except  in  loving  gift!  They  are 
Astarte's,  from  the  body  of  a  virgin  princess  of  old  Egypt, 
and  were  in  my  family  for  God  knows  how  many  years 
of  those  thousands  of  years !" 

With  a  little  outcry  of  fascination  Isabel  had  come 
over  and  was  holding  them  with  her,  her  fingers  touching 
Dulce's. 

They  shimmered.  They  were  so  exquisitely  definite 
and  vivid  now  that  it  was  as  if  the  very  shine  itself  of  the 
sun,  not  mere  light  from  it,  lighted  and  were  moreover 
an  integral  part  of  them.  They  were  robin's  egg,  cobalt, 
and  turquoise;  and  where  the  sheer  blue  had  finally, 
irresistibly  run  into  an  unmistakable  green  because  it 
encountered  the  pathetic  pottery,  the  green  was  that 
which  a  young,  frail,  aristocratic  girl  bears  above  her 
sometimes  in  unconsciously  expressing  her  nature  with  the 
ribbons  that  she  weaves  in  her  hair.  Old  things  are  so 
tired,  or  so  wise,  they  do  not  scream ;  else  the  cobalt,  the 
turquoise,  the  robin's-egg  must  have  done  other  than  hang 
resting  in  silence  there,  between  the  four  caring  hands,  so 
very  vital  and  so  very  static  were  they.  All  the  beads, 
together,  were  like  rare,  especially  desired  waters  brought 
to  meet  under  one  whim  of  the  sun:  the  profound 
Mediterranean  and  the  tender  Nile,  and  the  ocean  of  the 
tropics. 

"And  in  my  family,  Isabel,  perhaps  because  we  were 
tall-thinking  Spaniards,  there  was  a  story  that  if  you 
touched  them  with  money,  they  would  shrink  up,  and  up, 
if  you  were  not  careful  to  touch  them  so  no  more,  until 
they  choked  you !  Ah,  I  have  never  put  them  to  that  test, 
it  is  so  beautiful  a  thought  not  to  have  disproved.  And  I 
think  of  them  so  much  as  truly  so  a  part  of  me — the  only 
part  of  that  kind ! — that  7  could  never  even  give  them 
away,  save  at  my  death,  unless,  as  it  should  perfectly  be, 


A  Flower  of  the  English  Sun          185 

to  a  great  and  perfect  friend  such  as  you,  for  some  big 
purpose  and  reason  that  could  never  be  even  imagined 
till  they  suddenly  arose ;  or  unless — unless — to — to  him — • 
which  I  can — can  imagine  too  easily,  and  must  not  im- 
agine, because  in  such  a  thought  as  that,  in — in — in  that 
picture,  my  Isabel,  there — there  would  be  an  altar!" 

The  voice  choked,  but  Isabel  would  not  drop  the  beads 
to  let  her  turn  away.  Chaining  the  girl  to  her  with  them, 
she  looked  straight  into  her  eyes. 

"And — why  not?"  said  Isabel. 

Dulce  started  violently. 

"Oh,  no,  no !"  she  cried,  trembling  all  over.  "The  Gran 
Via  is  already  vast  and  difficult  enough !" 

"Dear,"  said  Isabel,  "there  is  something  I  have  wanted 
to  ask  you  about.  It  is  some  phrases  that  while  you 
were  so  ill  you  repeated  over  and  over.  One  was,  'You 
are  romantic,  hideously  romantic !'  You  were  talking  to  a 
nun.  Talking  with  her  pitiably,  and  in  some  dim,  spectral 
place,  yet  that  was  a  real  place,  I  am  sure,  not  an  im- 
aginary one.  And  after  a  long  time,  I  learned  that  what 
she  had  said  to  you  was,  that  'he*  might  come  back  'to 
honourably  pay.'  Why  'hideously'  romantic,  Dulce?  To 
me,  her  thought  was  beautifully  so.  You  were  bruised, 
sore,  bleeding  then.  You  are  not  now.  Indeed,  might  he 
not?  All  things  are  possible  with  God.  Great,  exquisite 
is  your  faith  for  all  other  things  of  the  Gran  Via.  Could 
you  not  have  such  a  faith,  as  well?" 

In  its  profound  divination,  its  tenderness  of  calm 
thought  and  deliberate  plan,  it  was  Friendship's  supreme 
offering,  transcendent  over  the  proffered  money  they  had 
discussed,  transcendent  over  the  terror  in  which  Dulce 
was  pitiably  sobbing,  a  terror  which  was  turning  to  that 
of  a  great  light,  feared  for  its  very  intensity,  that  would 
lead  her  from  her  present  abject  weakness  into  a  great 
approaching  exaltation  that  was  already  at  work  in  her — • 
because  as  she  gazed  with  helplessly  immovable  eyes  at 
Isabel,  held  even  more  strongly  while  with  even  more 
exquisite  delicacy  now  by  their  mutual  look  than  by  the 


186  The  Great  Way 

fragile  beads  still  bridging  them  together,  she  was  seeing 
with  electrical  clarity  that  every  symbol  in  life  is  a  matter 
of  interpretation,  that  all  evil  is  capable  of  good  as  all 
good  of  evil,  and  that  the  soul  that  should  have  been  the 
nun's  under  the  Christ  at  Mataro  was  standing  here  before 
her  in  this  girl  who  was  clothed  in  those  flowers  from  the 
waxen  Christ  instead  of  a  habit.  And  in  her  mute  ac- 
ceptance of  the  miracle-gift,  the  epic  of  friendship  be- 
tween them  slipped  from  its  bounds  of  mere  poetry  how- 
ever great,  into  the  boundlessness  of  life's  highest  ele- 
ment, and  in  that  moment  became  a  Sacrament. 

In  the  celestial  strength  of  it  Dulce,  with  a  cry,  was 
again  the  superhuman,  exalte  body  and  spirit  that  she  had 
become  from  the  House  of  the  Great  Voice,  that  she  had 
been  that  last  hour  of  Paris  with  Dona  Rina — and  more, 
for  the  great  causes  were  superlatively  more. 

"Oh,"  was  her  cry,  and  the  sob  in  it  was  ecstatically 
joyous,  "God  might  allow  it,  if  I  can  give  enough!  If 
I  can  really  achieve  the  pyramid  the  gypsy  talked  of  I 
Oh,  I  feel  it  all,  and  more  than  ever  before !  The  voice ! 
The  pyramid!  The  crowds!  Oh,  in  that  giving  to  the 
crowd,  it  now  will  be  like  giving  my  soul  to  him,  because 
I  will  be  not  only  paying  back,  but  becoming  worthy  of 
him!  I  will  be  walking  hand  in  hand  with  love,  though 
alone,  as  the  gitana  said,  alone  until  all  is  paid,  if  all 
ever  is  paid.  How  strange  that  one  need  be  ashamed  only 
of  bodily  nakedness — that  Society  allows  one  to  strip 
one's  soul  naked,  and  give  it  to  the  crowd,  without 
shame!  Ah,  it  is  all  clear,  now,  without  even  unhappi- 
ness  for  me  any  more,  real  unhappiness,  if  only  I  always 
am  enough  giving,  and  find — oh,  God  grant  it! — that  I 
have,  and  always  have,  enough  to  give!" 

"And  you  see  now,"  said  Isabel,  with  shining  eyes, 
"why  his  being  in  England  does  not  matter,  or  rather, 
why  it  matters  beautifully!  You  will  be  starting  near 
him!" 

"Ah,  no,  dear,  no!"  said  Dulce,  with  a  smile  even 
in  the  big  sadness  of  it,  "For  the  Gran  Via,  you  see,  i» 


A  {Fl&wer  of  the  English  Sum,          187 

not  like  that.  It  simply  is  not.  I  must  go  as  far  away 
from  him  as  possible — until — until " 

"And  when  I  must  go,  perhaps  any  day,"  said  Isabel, 
"almost  as  our  friendship  becomes  real  to  us,  you  will 
talk  of  our  parting,  of  its  ending?" 

"Ending?"  cried  Dulce.  "Neither  one  of  us  could  end 
it!  It  has  been!  Can  you  doubt  my  love  for  you,  and 
can  you  think  it  a  matter  hurt  by  time  or  geography? 
Remember  my  little  friend  that  I  told  you  of !" 

She  turned  again  to  the  balcony  and  pointed  outward 
and  upward. 

"Lola !  Why,  even  if  I  never  met  her  again,  and  I 
think  somehow  that  I  never  will,  she  is  still  my  friend, 
and  I  am  hers !  How  could  anything  as  real  as  that  ever 
cease  to  be?  I  met  and  knew  her  swiftly,  as  I  did  you. 
And  if  the  matter  of  it  is  no  longer  in  this  world,  then 
I  am  sure  it  must  be  a  little  star  somewhere,  or  some- 
thing like  it,  that  will  be  giving  its  light  to  me  along  the 
Gran  Via  sometimes,  even  when  I  do  not  know  it!  And 
with  you  and  me,  how  much,  much  more!  So  it  would 
be  too  with  Dona  Rina,  who  came  to  me  into  the  Way 
even  more  as  you  did;  and  as  with  dear  Dona  Rina  I 
felt  that  we  would  meet  again,  with  you,  Isabel,  I  know. 
Even  if  we  did  not,  my  Isabel,  after  you  have  gone,  so 
it  will  be  with  us — that  matter  of  starlight !" 

A  sound  startled  them  from  their  absorption — a  knock- 
ing from  the  corridor. 

"Your  telegram !"  exclaimed  Dulce.     "I  know  it  is  !" 

"Perhaps!"  said  Isabel,  and  started  toward  the  door, 
but  Dulce  caught  her  back. 

"I  want  to  be  your  maid,  as  I  was  Dona  Rina's,  for 
one  moment,  and  especially  in  this  thing!  Yes,  yes! 
For  the  meaning  of  it!"  And  she  ran  before  her  and 
brought  the  envelope  back  triumphantly.  "It  is,  you 
see!" 

"Why,"  exclaimed  Isabel,  reading  it,  "I  must  go  to 
the  station  at  once !  This  has  been  downstairs  for  hours, 
and  it  is  this  train — the  one  just  coming  in!" 


188  The  Great  Way 

Even  as  she  spoke,  Dulce,  gaily  swift  in  her  prettily 
played  role,  was  ready  with  her  hat,  and  a  moment  later 
was  waving  to  her  in  the  gallery-corridor  over  the  patio. 
Then  she  ran  back  through  the  room  and  out  onto  the 
little  scrolled  balcony.  She  was  sure  Isabel  would  look  up, 
and  Isabel  did,  pausing  for  a  smiling  moment,  a  flower 
in  the  sunshine  against  the  bright  diminutive  flower- 
garden  of  the  diminutive  plaza.  Across  its  toy  distance 
of  green  and  blue  and  yellow  houses  she  turned  once  more, 
for  Dulce  to  wave  again.  Then  she  disappeared,  into  the 
Rosario. 


CHAPTER  XXIII 

SCORES 

THE  dancing  gold  of  the  sun  was  that  of  the  descendant 
hour.  It  was  indeed  near  the  matter  of  starlight.  Rapt 
in  the  full  vibrant  thought  of  her  Gran  Via,  Dulce  stood 
in  this  its  interstice  of  peacefulness  deeply  breathing  in 
its  calm  and  inspiration.  And  when  after  a  long  moment 
of  this  debonair  drinking  she  almost  unconsciously  flung 
her  arms  rapturously  upward,  alone  on  the  dainty  balcony 
and  in  the  whole  little  plaza,  she  was  less  like  an  old 
caryatid  in  the  pearly,  rosy  frock  than  some  lovely  mod- 
ern French  statue  of  tinted  marbles.  The  very  silence  of 
sculpture  surrounded  her — from  the  deserted  room,  from 
the  deserted  square. 

But  this  was  broken — much  as  a  statue  might  imagin- 
ably have  been  by  such  dissonances — and  she  was  brought 
to  an  awareness  of  her  startling  attitude,  by  a  small  Babel 
of  voices,  and  one  that  specialized  one  voice,  exclaiming 
above  the  others: 

"Yes,  it  is  she!" 

It  was  the  triumvirate  of  theatre,  business,  and  music; 
the  Jew,  the  Catalonian,  and  the  Maestro. 

"No !"    "Yes !"  "No !" 

"Yes!    Yes!"    "No!    No!"    "Yes!    Yes!" 

"Yes,  it  is,  but  in  a  nice  dress!"  And  the  Maestro 
called  up  to  her :  "We  want  to  see  you  !" 

Dulce  was  the  statue  no  longer.  She  was  trembling- 
with  excitement,  but  happily  not  shattered  to  pieces,  for 
she  was  swift,  brilliantly  swift,  with  bravado. 

"You  were  not  nice  to  me  the  other  day!"  she  called. 
"I  have  some  employment  just  now,  and  I  will  not  let 
you  see  me  till  to-night!" 

189 


190  The  Great  Way 

"7  was  nice  to  you  the  other  day !"  cried  the  Maestro. 
"We  must  see  you !  Come  here !" 

"Come  here!"  replied  Dulce,  airily.  "I  am  too  fashion- 
able to  go  there!" 

And  making  good  her  words  she  turned  from  the  bal- 
cony with  a  defiant  toss  of  her  head  and  ran  thrilling  into 
the  room.  Already  it  was  dusky  and  she  flooded  it  with 
electric  light  and  ran  on  and  flung  open  the  door.  She 
could  hear  their  excited  voices  ascendant  on  the  patio 
stair,  and  briefly  they  were  in  the  room,  all  talking  at 
once,  as  suddenly  and  violently  present  as  they  had  been 
that  day  in  the  street,  and  all  performing,  loud  as  the  end 
of  Faust,  in  an  explanatory  chorus  to  Dulce: 

"We  could  not  find  her,  that  nice  fat  woman!  Devil! 
Bruja!  She  escapes!  She  repents!  Thinking  we  sail, 
she  goes  on  board  the  boat !  Thinking  she  stays,  we 
change  our  tickets !  It  sails !" 

"Boats  are  dangerous  things  that  way !"  said  Dulce. 
"I  was  saying  so  only  to-day!" 

"And,  after  a  week — Sh-sh-sh-oo-oo-oo-er ! — we  find 
«/ow/"  said  the  Maestro.  His  marvellously  articulated 
"sure,"  the  only  English  word  he  had  ever  learned,  come 
to  him  from  some  foreign  lips  and  gathered  into  his 
sensuous  being  as  a  parrot  gathers  in  a  curse  or  a  caress, 
indelibly,  appealed  to  him,  with  its  delicious  distortion 
of  the  forbidden  "u,"  as  an  enticing  expletive,  somehow 
pure  yet  somehow  fascinating,  and  he  used  it  as  he  might 
have  used  a  heliotrope  evening  suit — on  all,  though  only, 
very  great  occasions.  Between  his  contributions  he  had 
been  gazing  all  about,  and  his  long  nose  was  inhaling  the 
violets  while  even  more  blissfully  the  Jew's  soul  was  in- 
haling the  great  smiling  negress  and  her  cigar. 

"That  is  a  nice  woman !"  said  the  Jew. 

"Come  both  here  to  business,"  said  the  Catalonian. 

The  Maestro,  thin,  tall,  gaunt,  eager,  gentle  creature, 
unmistakably  Naples  peasant  but  as  inevitably  sheer  lyric, 
with  those  soft,  fire-flecked  brown  eyes,  the  longish,  loopy, 
heavy,  dead-black  hair  and  dead-white,  large,  almost 


Scores  191 

cadaver-like  features,  was  carrying  a  great  music-score — 
quite  as  he  might  have  carried  a  mattress  with  him,  to 
sleep  on  anywhere,  as  if  they  had  fully  expected  to  find 
Dulce  with  a  piano  attached  to  her  wherever  it  was  they 
found  her;  and  he  did  not  show  the  least  surprise,  now 
that  they  did.  From  all  his  ways  as  from  all  his  features, 
it  was  absolutely  impossible  to  know  whether  this  was 
a  very  old  young  man  or  an  old  man  vastly  young;  and 
pre-eminent  about  him  was  something  virginal.  Whatever 
his  state,  whether  monastic  or  barbarous  in  its  facts,  the 
truth  of  him  was  that  his  real  wife  was  Art — her  soul 
was  music,  her  body,  as  a  rule,  was  a  piano.  Her  form, 
to  him,  was  mere  matter  of  indifference:  whether  she  was 
three-legged  or  an  upright  stump,  and  wherever  he  ran 
across  her,  she  was  his,  and  he  performed  upon  her.  But 
he  would  have  abandoned  her  to  go  live  in  a  cave  with  a 
griffin,  if  it  could  sing. 

"You  told  us,"  he  said  to  the  outwardly  calm  but  in- 
wardly surging  Dulce,  "that  you  have  a  singing  voice. 
Do  you  understand  the  notes,  signora?"  He  named  her 
with  this  Italian  "madame"  as  though  it  meant  with  him 
some  special  courtesy. 

"No — yes — I  am  not  sure — Why,  of  course  I  do!" 
said  Dulce.  "Like  all  poor  girls  in  the  Barcelona  theatres, 
I  learned  by  ear  from  the  Maestro  and  the  band.  But  I 
am  a  very  strange  girl,  as  I  have  found  out  in  a  number 
of  ways,  and  I  have  noticed  especially,  that  once  I  know 
a  tune,  I  seem  to  recognize  the  notes  if  I  see  them  after- 
wards on  paper.  It  was  that  way,  for  instance,  with 
the  'Cavalier  de  la  Luna,'  which  I  sing  exactly  as  well 
as  Raquel  Meller  can.  Let  me  tell  you,  that  if  I  look 

at  this "  Even  as  he  had  opened  his  lips  to  bid  her, 

she  had  stepped  to  the  piano,  on  which  he  had  stood  open 
the  big  score.  He  swung  about  on  the  stool,  and  struck 
a  key  for  her,  watching  her  with  some  amusement,  more 
anxiety. 

Dulce  began  to  hum,  but  she  stopped  short  after  a  fev 
notes. 


192  The  Great  Way 

"No,  no.  I  lack  confidence,  because  these  two  other 
men  have  been  so  disagreeable  the  other  day!" 

"You  must  not  lack  confidence,"  he  said.  "I  see  some- 
thing in  you.  You  have  a  beautiful  face.  You  look  like 
me.  Your  nose  goes  the  same  way." 

"Does  it?"  cried  Dulce,  nervously  startled. 

"Yes,  several  ways."  And  he  reached  up  and  put  a 
long  finger  on  her  nose.  "No?  Yes?  No?  So  and  so, 
and  so?  But  all  to  the  same  end.  The  same  end  as  mine. 
Music.  I  like  you !" 

"Oh,  thank  you!"  gasped  Dulce.  "And  if  you  will 
but  play  a  little,  I  can  sing  it  afterwards,  from  memory. 
Then,  I  will  always  remember  the  way  the  notes  look,  I 
am  sure.  It  is  a  queer  thing  with  me,  that  I  cannot 
explain." 

"Perhaps  you  are  a  genius,  like  me !"  he  said.  "7  never 
had  to  learn  the  notes  at  all!  Never!" 

He  played  a  few  bars  from  an  aria,  Dulce  listening 
intently.  But  instead  of  singing  it,  she  turned  to  him 
with  raised  eye-brows. 

"Why,  that  is  quite  pretty,  is  it  not?"  she  exclaimed. 
Then  she  hummed  the  air  softly,  correct  in  every  note, 
her  eyes  travelling  the  page  as  she  did  so. 

"You  have  surely  studied  music,  yes,  signora?" 

"When  I  was  very  young,  two  or  three  lessons.  I  was 
four  years  old  perhaps.  And  it  was  here  in  Cadiz — I 
am  truthful,  you  see.  We  had  a  little  money  at  that 
time." 

"Then  you  are  a  wonderful  mimic,  a  wonderful 
ear!" 

"Very  wonderful  indeed,"  said  Dulce.  "You  have  yet 
to  know." 

He  took  his  hands  from  the  keys  and  folded  them 
resolutely. 

"You  can  hum  all  that  again — without  the  piano?" 

"Of  course !"  said  Dulce. 

"Do  so,  then !"  and  she  did  so. 

"And  this?"    He  played  further,  double  as  much.    She 


Scores  193 

hummed  it  all  promptly,  swaying  a  little  with  the  melody 
as  it  grew. 

"That  is  pretty!  Who  wrote  it?"  And  she  looked 
at  the  top  of  the  page.  "Why,  Valverde!  Joachin  Val- 
verde — our  own  marvellous  Quinito !  No  wonder  it  is 
pretty !" 

"But  we  have  yet  to  hear  the  voice,  signorina.  The 
first  bars,  now — you  remember  them?  Sing  them  then. 
And  I  mean  sing.  The  full  voice." 

"You  mean  loud — as  loud  as  I  can?" 

"Yes,  as  loud  as  you  can." 

Dulce  stared  at  him. 

"But  name  of  God !  Indoors,  that  would  be  very  vul- 
gar, would  it  not?" 

He  laughed  gurglingly. 

"We  have  yet  to  know,  signora !" 

"But  if  I  put  my  head  back !"  protested  Dulce. 

"Why,  you  have  never  heard  such  a  racket!" 

"Perhaps  not.    Let  me  hear  one  now." 

Dulce  threw  up  her  chin,  her  throat  open,  and  sang 
the  melody — slipping,  intoxicated  with  her  power,  from 
tone  to  tone  on  to  the  end.  Perhaps  she  had  never  truly 
heard  her  own  voice  before.  The  sound,  full,  limpid,  pure, 
poured  out  with  the  natural  abandon  of  a  bird's,  joyous 
as  a  child's,  but  big,  filling  the  room,  lilting,  natural,  glad 
yet  poignant  with  pathos.  When  she  stopped,  the  sound 
died  away  into  a  stillness  as  absolute  as  that  which  suf- 
fuses a  great  audience  about  to  burst  into  wild  noise.  She 
was  frightened  at  the  noise  she  had  just  made  herself, 
and  at  their  silence. 

"What  did  I  tell  you?"  she  demanded. 

Her  question  snapped  the  spell  in  which  the  musician 
sat,  and  jumping  to  his  feet  he  turned  excitedly  to  his 
companions. 

"Dio,  Dio,  but  it  is  the  bel  canto,  the  bel  canto !" 

The  Jew  shot  him  a  look  of  caution,  the  Catalonian 
spoke  to  him  rapidly. 

"You  think  you  could  teach  her?" 


194  The  Great  Way 

"Teach  her?  I  have  nothing  to  teach!  I  have  but 
to  play  the  notes !" 

"If  we  give  you  this  fine  part,  senora "  The  busi- 
ness-man addressed  her,  but  the  Jew  interrupted  him. 

"A  grave  risk,  you  understand !" 

" can  you  agree,"  continued  the  Catalonian,  "to 

be  ready  in  three  days?  We  can  offer  you  your  expenses 
and  a  hundred  pesetas  weekly." 

Dulce  was  quivering,  and  at  mention  of  the  sum  was 
speechless;  but  in  her  very  confusion  a  quick  thought 
came  to  her  rescue,  and  she  turned  her  gasp  of  joy  to 
one  of  seeming  horror. 

"For  such  a  lovely  voice?  Remember,  I  have  lived 
in  Paris,  and  a  hundred  francs  is  ridiculous.  Two  hun- 
dren,  I  think,  no?" 

"Well,  well,  with  your  expenses — a  hundred  and  fifty  ?" 

"Well,  for  the  present,  yes,"  said  Dulce,  "for  I  recog- 
nize the  sort  I  am  dealing  with.  You  may  have  heard  the 
saying:  that  there  are  no  Jews  in  Barcelona  because  the 
Catalonians  are  still  stingier.  But  to  start  with,  we  will 
call  a  hundred  and  fifty  fair  enough." 

"Bruja!"  snapped  the  Jew.  "It  is  far  more  than  fair! 
The  play  is  but  an  hour-piece,  and  you  need  but  two 
costumes !" 

"But  I  shall  dress  very  fashionably,"  said  Dulce. 

"Let  us  hope  so,"  said  the  Catalonian.  "We  lose 
money  as  it  is,  for  thanks  to  that  other  devil  we  cannot 
now  get  a  theatre  here.  Beginning  next  week,  we  are 
engaged  for  the  Tivoli  in  Barcelona." 

"Barcelona.  .  .  .  The  Tivoli !"  gasped  Dulce.  "There 
is  fate  in  this !" 

"A  drowning,  perhaps,"  grinned  the  Jew,  "for  we  are 
going  by  ship  direct, — not  rail — and  you  said  yourself 
boats  are  dangerous!  And  this  one  might  be  for  your 
bargain,  for  are  you  going  to  be  sea-sick,  or  do  you  know 
how  to  learn  music  on  a  boat?" 

"Of  course  I  can  learn  music  on  a  boat!  Why  not?" 
said  Dulce. 


Scores  195 

"Very  well,"  said  the  business-man  with  finality,  "we 
take  the  Trasatlantica,  sailing  at  light  to-morrow  morn- 
ing, getting  in  Monday.  Time  for  one  rehearsal  with 
scenery.  Open  at  night.  We  will  now  sign  a  contract, 
girl." 

"No,"  said  Dulce  promptly,  "for  I  might  wish  to 
sing  in  the  Grand  Opera  at  any  moment.  I  am  very 
honest  and  would  give  you  fair  warning  ahead,  just  as 
I  would  expect  you  to  do  me.  So  a  contract  is  not 
necessary." 

The  two  men  stared  at  each  other. 

"All  right,"  said  the  Jew.  "That  works  both  ways ! 
We  are  going  to  the  boat  now.  Come.  Are  you  ready?" 

"Not — not  quite!"  gasped  Dulce.     "I  will  meet  you!" 

"No  !     No  !"  they  both  cried,  frightened. 

"Go  get  her  ticket,"  said  the  Neapolitan,  blandly.  "I 
will  bring  her.  Go  on !"  And  the  two,  shrugging  their 
four  shoulders,  went  forth,  leaving  her  alone  with  her 
Maestro. 

"Oh,  you  are  so  good!"  she  cried.  "But  even  you 
must  leave  me!  I  will  meet  you  outside,  in  the  Plaza. 
You  will  understand !  I  must  be  alone,  before  I  start  on 
— this — for  at  least  one,  one  moment !" 

He  looked  into  her  eyes,  gravely,  then  with  a  slow, 
divine  smile. 

"7  can  trust  you!"  he  said,  the  words  slow  as  the 
smile,  his  head  nodding  with  satisfaction.  "Shoo-er!  But 
can  you  trust  yourself?  You  are  too  excited  !" 

"We — we  can  both  trust  me  not  to  be  a  thief,"  she 
said,  "so  leave  that,"  and  she  pointed  to  the  score,  "and 
I  will  have  to  bring  it  to  you !" 

Again  he  smiled  like  a  seraph,  again  his  words  were 
slowly  spoken. 

"Yes,  yes,  you  have  the  temperament!  I  will  wait  out 
there!" 

"I  will  be  there!"  she  cried.  "Indeed,  for  you  I  am 
running  away  from  someone  else.  Mind  you  appreciate 
it ! — for,  oh,  it  is  someone  who  must  not  see  me,  that  she 


196  The  Great  Way 

may  be  a  little  the  less  hurt !  So  if  you  see  an  elegant  lady 
and  gentleman  coming,  whistle — do  not  fail !  You  can- 
not mistake,  for  she  is  so  beautiful  she  will  look  like  sun- 
shine, even  in  the  starlight !  Whistle — tliat!" 

And  she  pointed  again  to  the  score. 

"I  will  whistle  it,"  he  said.  "Part  of  what  you  sang 
— the  cigarette  song." 

In  the  doorway  he  turned  and  looked  at  her,  and  once 
more  smiled — that  slow  smile. 

"/  can  trust  you!"  he  said. 

Alone,  once  more,  with  a  long,  long  breath,  her  hands 
clasped  before  her,  she  gazed  toward  the  balcony,  and 
then,  the  hands  still  so  held,  she  walked  across  and 
stepped  through  the  tall  windows  for  one,  one  more  long, 
ecstatic  moment  upon  it,  now  in  the  quiet  fullness  of 
night  and  starshine,  and  stood  gazing  down  at  the  silent 
tiny  square,  its  blackened  toy  garden,  the  lantern,  now 
agleam  with  yellow,  hanging  from  the  yellow  church 
almost  within  reach  of  her  hand  and  shedding  its  radiance 
over  the  clean  cobblestones  across  to  the  two  absurdly 
narrow  streets  leading  in. 

"Oh !  So  the  Gran  Via  can  be  by  water  too  !  Strange 
— I  had  never  thought  of  that!  Oh,  what  a  clean,  clean 
way  to  start  again !" 

She  dared  no  further  moment. 

She  came  swiftly  in,  across  to  Isabel's  writing-desk, 
and  took  up  a  pen,  the  words  "Darling  Isabel"  clear  in 
her  mind ;  but  suddenly  and  equally  clear  there  leapt  back 
to  her  her  words  to  Dona  Rina:  "I — I  spell  like  the 
devil,"  and  she  dropped  the  pen. 

For  a  long  instant  she  stood  with  her  back  to  the  desk, 
her  hands  clasped  against  her  bosom,  which  was  rising 
and  falling  with  the  surge  of  a  new  thought  that  had 
come  to  her.  Then  the  hands  fastened  decisively  tight  on 
the  Astarte  beads,  lifted  them  swiftly  from  around  her 
neck.  She  ran  over  to  the  piano,  hung  them,  with  their 
now  electric-lighted  and  rich,  shining,  indeed,  glazed  blues 
and  greens,  in  the  purple  violets ;  swiftly  bent  and  touched 


Scores  197" 

both  them  and  the  petals  with  her  lips;  and  sped  into 
the  bedroom. 

When  after  wonderfully  few  moments  she  returned  for 
the  score,  she  was  in  her  dark,  worn  skirt  and  waist.  And 
when  she  closed  and  lifted  the  heavy  score,  heavy  more- 
over, it  almost  seemed  to  her  excited  prescience,  with 
destiny,  its  big-lettered  name  on  the  cover  flashed  before 
her,  and  she  nearly  dropped  it. 

LA  GRAN  VIA  it  read. 

"Holy  God!"  she  gasped.  "And  I  have  ever  doubted 
anything!" 

As  she  stood  gazing  at  it  in  trembling  wonder,  the  big 
book  held  before  her  on  both  arms,  a  whistle,  the  whistled 
lilting  notes  of  the  cigarette  song,  came  distinctly  out  of 
the  starlight  of  the  plaza. 

With  a  violent  start  she  clasped  the  score  with  one 
arm  against  her  breast,  ran  to  the  further  bedroom,  and 
noiselessly  out  of  it  into  a  side  corridor  of  the  patio 
gallery.  A  few  seconds  later  she  was  with  the  waiting 
Maestro  at  the  corner  of  the  church;  he  took  the  score, 
took  her  arm ;  still  a  few  seconds  later,  he  had  led  her, 
unprotesting  though  her  heart  beat  wildly,  into  the  dark 
Rosario,  where  she  had  learned  to  walk  .  .  .  out  of  which 
she  had  walked,  before,  into  her  Gran  Via.  .  .  .  After 
them  through  the  silver  night  of  the  ocean  city  came  only 
the  calling  whistle  of  its  patrolling  guards,  signalling  in 
the  quiet  starlight. 


CHAPTER  XXIV 

GBAN  EXITO 

AS  the  big  ship  drew  out  of  the  Bahia,  Dulce  stood  at 
the  rail  in  the  radiant  early  morning,  watching  the  slow 
retreat  of  white  Cadiz  against  the  blue  sky.  She  had 
never  gone  to  sea  before,  and  a  thrill  of  excitement  was 
in  her. 

But  her  mind,  despite  the  little  ocean  of  music  surging 
from  boundary  to  boundary  of  it — for  she  had  studied 
with  the  Maestro  all  night — and  almost  overflowing  from 
her  fatal  success  and  with  thoughts  of  the  torrents  of 
work  that  must  suffuse  the  slender  handful  of  days  and 
nights,  was  yet  calm:  curiously,  quite  deliberately  calm, 
at  its  own  imperious  dictation. 

She  had  told  herself,  that  rapturous  last  long  moment 
in  the  little  balcony,  as  she  gazed  into  the  starlit  plaza, 
that  thus  her  mind  must  be;  that  until  her  role  was 
mastered,  the  notes  sure  and  unforgettable  on  her  tongue, 
and  the  words  pinned  securely  in  her  memory,  and  the 
steps — easiest  of  all  for  her — as  ready  in  her  toes  as  the 
most  hereditary  of  Peninsular  dances,  she  must  not  think 
beyond  the  circle  of  these  things,  must  not  look  either 
backward  at  the  old  Gran  Via  or  forward  along  the  new 
one;  that  at  utmost  best  the  time  for  the  bulk  of  all  this 
arduous  task  would  be  the  two  days  on  the  ship;  and 
even  in  decocting  and  determining  all  this,  reflecting,  too, 
that  as  to  what  had  happened  and  what  was  about  to 
happen  with  so  much  suddenness  to  her,  later  on  she 
could — and  certainly  would! — consider  it  all;  and  even 
that,  then,  do  quietly,  slowly,  surely. 

And  with  that  instinctive  grasp  and  use  of  imaginative 
things  that  so  often  helped  her  in  her  paucity  of  learning, 

198 


Gran  Exito  199 

she  had  decided  then  and  there  on  the  little  balcony  that 
the  silence  and  the  starlight  paralleled  the  calm  that  she 
would  need;  and  she  had  striven  vividly  to  picture  them, 
and  to  lay  away  the  thought  of  them,  to  her  purpose. 

She  remembered  them  now,  as  she  stood  with  her  hand 
on  the  deck-rail  in  the  soft  light  of  a  day  rare  in  her  native 
section  of  the  world — rare  because  for  all  of  Cadiz's  glit- 
ter as  it  sank  away,  there  was  a  haze  in  the  air  that  subtly 
held  a  quality  of  mist  .  .  .  the  sun  would  disappear,  to- 
day, before  his  time. 

"This  is  indeed  an  'exito' — one  that  must  become  a 
Gran  Exito !  How  different  from  the  other  start !  I 
suppose  no  two  beginnings  are  ever  quite  alike.  .  .  ." 

Cadiz  was  gone  .  .  .  somewhere  down  into  the  salt 
water  like  lost  Atlantis.  Dulce  was  alone,  Cadiz  behind 
her  for  the  second  time — forever,  if  she  so  chose  now! 
— and  the  true  Gran  Via  was  begun.  She  would  be 
utterly  alone,  with  God  and  salt  water,  to-night.  The 
ugly  words  of  the  Jew  came  back  to  her,  but  they  brought 
to  her  only  a  little  wistfully  happy  smile:  "No,  I  was 
never  born  to  drown,  except  in  the  meaning  of  tears, 
perhaps !" 

She  began  to  think  slowly,  carefully,  weighingly.  Fate 
was  with  her,  so  much  she  believed  unquestioningly.  Her 
big  conviction,  the  revelation  of  art  that  had  torn  the 
wall  of  ignorance  from  before  her  yearning,  untutored 
mind  just  as  that  other  miracle,  an  understanding  of  hu- 
man love,  had  wiped  the  soot  from  it,  was  as  real  and 
sparklingly  clear  to  her  to-day  on  the  face  of  the  waters 
as  it  had  been  that  mad  hysterical  evening  with  Dona 
Rina  in  Paris,  as  it  had  been  that  life-clarifying  epoch 
of  an  instant  with  exquisite  Isabel  yesterday;  and  was 
dwelling  with  her  serenely  as  a  pure  religion. 

For  to  her  big  desirous  spirit,  lacerated  in  the  cruel 
kindergarten  of  the  Trudge  Market  and  burnt  clean  by. 
its  muddy  fire,  her  conviction  was  a  religion  essentially, 
and,  in  its  beautiful  sense  of  a  "bringing  back,"  a  religion 
literally  .  .  .  and  her  faith  in  it  was  as  great,  and  in  its 


200  The  Great  Way 

basic  acceptation  by  her  as  simple,  as  the  inherited  faith 
of  any  primitive  daughter  of  her  old,  sweet,  simple  race. 

She  thought  she  saw,  too,  her  Gran  Via  clear  to  the 
fulfilment  of  this  religion,  insofar  as  that  might,  indeed 
must,  be  allowed  thought  now.  The  beginning  was  already 
made,  and  with  a  God-given  endowment,  for  with  all  the 
purposeful  reserve  of  tlie  two  managers  she  had  com- 
prehended their  satisfied,  almost  fearful  discovery  of  a 
phenomenal  voice.  And  the  next  step,  the  only  one  neces- 
sary to  consider  with  care  until  it  had  been  taken,  was 
not  only  prepared,  but  to  her  characteristically  confident 
mind  supremely  easy,  for  it  was  merely  so  to  succeed  on 
Monday  night  that  the  verdict  "gran  exito"  should  be 
loudly  plastered  on  every  fence  in  Spain. 

Later,  there  must  be,  she  knew,  long  months,  perhaps 
long  years,  of  drastic  study,  monumental.  But  that  was 
a  distance  off,  because  first  she  must  have  the  money  to 
pay  for  it.  And  as  for  the  terrible  pesetas  that  she  had 
sworn  to  pay  back  into  the  market,  that  thought  of  all 
thoughts  here  concerned  was  not  a  calm  one,  and  she 
knew  she  must  forswear  harbouring  it,  save  sunk  to  the 
very  deepest  of  soul- waters,  just  now. 

Her  eyes,  grown  misty  as  the  sky  had  grown,  were 
fascinated  to  weariness  by  the  swift  passing  of  the  blue- 
green  water,  and  she  dropped  back  into  a  deck-chair, 
lowering  her  lids  a  little  to  keep  the  strolling,  chattering 
passengers  from  intruding  Spanish-wise  into  her  quiet- 
ness ;  and  hour  by  hour  the  day  slipped  toward  noon 
and  afternoon  slipped  toward  sundown.  A  thick,  soft 
line  grew  distantly  out  of  the  sea,  and  with  a  little  quiver 
of  delight  she  thought:  "That  must  be  Africa!  I  am 
already  seeing  continents  in  my  Gran  Via !"  And  she 
wondered  whether  the  far  blue  haze  above  the  line  could 
be  the  fabulous  Mountains  of  the  Moon.  Afterward  her 
dreams  must  have  melted  from  waking  into  sleep,  for  she 
started  dazedly  when  the  Maestro  touched  her  arm. 

"Do  you  not  wish  to  see,  signorina?" 

Her  deck  was  quite  deserted,  and  in  vague  curiosity 


Gran  Eacito  201 

she  followed  him  to  the  other  side  of  the  ship,  where 
passengers  were  lined  all  along  the  rail. 

The  sun  was  covered  somewhere  behind  her  in  the 
west,  and  before  her,  far  across  the  waters,  grey  against 
the  dull  pearl  of  the  sky,  a  delicate  miracle  rose  in  two 
huge  mist-like  crests,  two  giant,  solid  shadows  toned 
with  tender  hints  of  lavender,  mysterious  and  unreal, 
melting  slowly  into  one  Titan  ghost  of  stone. 

Dulce  caught  her  breath  at  the  filmy  vision,  dragon  of 
a  continent,  symbol  of  a  nation  .  .  .  the  symbol  of  it,  for 
that  nation,  broken ;  the  love  of  it,  and  the  rock  of  it, 
unbreakable.  .  .  .  Much,  often,  as  her  thoughts,  her  talk, 
had  been  of  it,  she  had  never  seen  it  before.  .  .  .  Then 
Gibraltar,  like  Cadiz,  was  gone;  her  ship  was  gliding 
into  to-night's  dark  grey  waters  of  the  Mediterranean.  .  .  . 

A  night,  a  day,  another  new  sun,  a  glittering  heavenly 
sea,  bluer  than  paint,  and  Little  Gibraltar,  guarding 
Little  Paris,  was  standing  before  her;  the  red  earth  and 
red  rock  of  fortress-crowned  Mont  Juich,  descending  to 
the  waters'  edge  at  Barcelona's  entry. 

Overswept  by  memories,  but  gloriously  free  of  her 
terrible  walking,  she  drove  up  the  Ramblas,  past  the 
Continental — "Everything  shall  be  new!" — across  the 
Plaza  Cataluna  to  the  Hotel  Inglaterra. — "Inglaterra, 
Isabel's  land!" — She  had  no  desire  for  food,  but  some 
instinct  told  her  that  she  must  not  dine  like  a  Spaniard 
just  before  the  performance,  so  she  forced  herself  to  a 
noon  breakfast,  and  then  walked  the  brief  square  to  the 
Tivoli,  into  its  drinking-garden,  and  thence  through  the 
big  low  auditorium  to  the  stage.  At  last  her  rehearsal 
was  over,  and  that  of  the  "Espectdculo,"  which  was  to 
precede  the  little  opera,  began.  In  the  wings,  the  Maestro 
was  praising  her  with  warm,  gentle  hands  and  lighted 
eyes.  Even  the  Jew  had  lost  his  frightened  look;  in  his 
eyes  and  those  of  the  Catalan  the  gradual  expression  of 
respect  was  growing. 

"You  will  be  here  at  eigh t- thirty  ?  Or  assuredly  by  a 
quarter  to  nine,  senorita?" 


202  The  Great  Way 

"Is  that  necessary,  senor?  We  do  not  begin,  you 
say,  till  after  ten.'* 

"It  is  better!     It  is  better!"  cried  the  Jew  nervously. 

"Very  well,  senor,  if  it  will  spare  you  a  frenzy.  But 
give  me  some  more  money,  s'il  vous  plait — quite  a  lot. 
I  need  an  expensive  manton.  How  much  have  I  had  so 
far — a  week's  worth?" 

"Fully  two  weeks'  worths,  senorita !"  cried  the  Catalan. 
"Can  you  not " 

"No,  senor,  I  can  not!  You  have  said  that  I  must 
be  well  dressed,  and  do  you  suppose  I  would  consent  to 
anything  else  in  any  case?  You  are  going  to  have  a  long 
run  on  my  account,  too,  remember  that !" 

"Let  us  hope  so !  Let  us  hope  so !"  cried  the  Jew 
with  a  sigh,  as  his  fellow-manager  handed  her  money. 

"Remember  I  politely  said  Vil  vous  plait,'  a  French 
word,  senores.  I  cannot  blame  you  for  not  exactly  know- 
ing it,  especially  as  we  have  nothing  just  right  for  it  in 
Spanish.  But  it  means  something  quite  like  'make  the 
favour,'  and  you  might  have  recognized  the  tone  of  it! 
Anyway,  I  have  explained  it  now,  and  in  addition  I  now 
say  'thank  you.*  Manners  are  much  in  this  world!" 
And  with  mutters  of  "Devil!  Devil!"  floating  after  her, 
she  was  gone. 

Her  part  in  the  slender  little  comedy  of  music,  a  "one 
hour  play"  with  swiftly  shifted  scenes  and  no  pauses, 
was  neither  long  nor,  for  one  of  Dulce's  lightness  of  foot 
and  fearless  confidence  of  voice  and  action,  at  all  arduous; 
and  three  times  in  the  remaining  hours  she  rehearsed  it 
inwardly,  mentally  singing  every  note,  with  every  word, 
building  new  gestures,  new  movements,  new  expressions 
into  it.  Three  times ;  till  at  last  she  was  fully  satisfied, 
and  her  brain  a  little  weary,  so  that  she  put  it  all  from 
her,  knowing  that  the  first  tones  of  the  orchestra  would 
bring  it  all  back.  And  to  keep  busy  (and  thence  pacified) 
the  mechanically  moving  musical  sense,  she  hummed  and 
re-hummed  the  Cavalier  de  la  Luna,  inquisitively  studying 
out  its  notes  and  French  syllable-phrasing  from  her  Paris 


Gran  Eaeito  203 

copy  .  .  .  thinking  of  Dona  Rina  .  .  .  deciding  to  carry 
it  lovingly  with  her  to  the  theatre  as  a  mascot.  She  had 
no  fear  of  her  voice,  her  dancing,  her  memory.  But 
her  memories.  .  .  .  These,  she  did  fear  a  little,  wondering 
if  she  could  put  them  all  into  the  voice  ...  if  perhaps 
they  would  instead  swarm  up  and  overwhelm  the  voice, 
and  her  .  .  .  Jose  Luis  .  .  .  that  terrible  immaculate 
night  .  .  .  Melba  .  .  .  the  Louvre.  .  .  . 

She  had  promised  quarter  to  nine;  but  "It  will  be  just 
as  sensible  to  scare  them  a  little,"  she  decided,  and  ac- 
cordingly, though  she  summoned  a  carriage  at  half-past 
eight,  she  gave  directions  far  more  reaching  than  the 
distance  of  the  palm-lined  little  stretch  to  the  Tivoli. 

"The  Calle  de  las  Cortes,  friend,  out  to  the  bull-ring, 
and  around  all  of  it,  and  out  into  the  Gran  Via,  and  down 
to  the  Gracia,  and  then  to  the  Tivoli." 

It  was  a  pasear  of  memories  .  .  .  with  underneath 
them,  the  hum  of  her  role  once  more.  She  had  finished 
the  last  subconscious  note  of  it  and  swung  again  into  the 
Apache  waltz  as  the  carriage  swung  into  its  few  short 
blocks  of  the  Gracia,  when,  suddenly,  she  stopped 
humming. 

It  was  a  thick,  soft  night.  The  two  side-street  corners 
with  the  fashionable  "Novedades"  and  the  casual  "Tivoli" 
cheek  by  jowl  were  within  sight;  and  stretching  out  from 
her  own  theatre  through  the  rich  darkness  burned  the 
opera's  title  in  great  shining  magenta-pink  electric  lights : 
"LA  GRAN  VIA." 

To  see  it  thus,  written  in  the  air,  and  concerning  her, 
in  such  roseate  letters  against  the  warm  smudge  of  this 
city's  languorous  night,  had  brought  tears,  a  swift  help- 
less rush  of  them,  to  her  cheeks.  When  she  had  been 
driven  under  it  to  the  stage  door,  she  hastily  paid  her 
driver  a  double  fare,  and  marched  into  the  dark  corridor 
to  the  stage. 

"Well,  well,  that  is  all  right,  senores!"  she  answered 
calmly  to  the  wild  relieved  swearings  of  the*  managers, 
and  went  with  no  further  ado  to  her  dressing-room. 


204  The  Great  Way 

Distinguished  from  all  her  companions,  she  did  not  have 
to  share  it,  and  so  was  happily  alone,  for  as  yet  she  could 
afford  no  maid,  and  persuaded  herself  that  she  did  not 
want  one,  buoyantly  visionary  as  were  her  thoughts  of 
Dona  Rina,  and  especially  that  very  early  comment  of 
that  dear  woman's  over  in  the  bull-ring.  .  .  . 

Above  the  confusion  outside  her  door  came  to  her  the 
brass  clang  of  the  Espectdculo,  "The  Magnificent  Pecca- 
dillos of  Don  Juan,"  which  were  loudly  blaring  to  an 
end,  even  in  Spanish  imagination,  for  at  least  one  night. 
Dulce's  body  was  trembling  all  over,  but  her  mind  was 
not.  Her  voice  and  feet  would  steady  at  the  music.  She 
knew  that.  .  .  .  Don  Juan  crashed  with  his  large  loves 
into  silence.  .  .  . 

The  Maestro  came  to  her  with  a  kind  word.  "Thank 
you,  Maestro,"  she  said  through  the  door.  "I  am  not 
afraid."  A  few  moments  later  she  heard  the  first  tones 
of  the  overture. 

When  the  call-boy  came  to  her  room  he  did  not  find 
her.  She  was  already  in  the  wings,  waiting.  The  whole 
score  was  familiar  to  her  now,  and  she  stood  humming 
and  slightly  swaying  to  the  rhythms.  Her  heart  was 
tumultuous.  .  .  .  Gracias  a  Dios,  no  one  spoke  to  her.  .  . . 

She  had  left  her  face  very  pale,  with  lips  brilliantly 
carmined,  after  the  new  French  fashion  she  had  seen. 
Her  very  simple  gown  was  of  white,  a  deep  rose  at  its 
waist — none  in  her  soft  dark  hair,  which  was  parted 
and  drawn  into  a  low  knot  at  the  back  of  her  beautifully 
modelled  head,  which  thus  was  almost  black  against  the 
marble  white  of  her  neck.  The  white  gown  was  cut  very 
low — just  a  little  lower  than  anything  she  had  ever  seen 
in  Spain.  Held  behind  her,  and  drooping  from  the  hips 
and  over  her  lovely  naked  arms,  was  the  manton  that 
also  she  had  ferreted  out  to-day — from  the  junk  market, 
this,  for  which  she  had  determinedly  bargained  indeed, 
but  wit'h  no  such  noise  as  she  had  described  to  Dona 
Hina,  for  her  lilting  musical  inward  rehearsing  had  been 
in  progress  the  while.  And  it  was  a  manton  sensuous 


Gran  Earito  205 

and  rich  as  music  with  which  she  had  come  forth  and 
with  which  she  was  standing  here  now — old,  far,  far  older 
than  she,  a  heavy  Oriental  fabric  from  the  far,  far 
Philippines,  black  and  gold,  with  stabs  of  red  and  yellow 
and  old  blues,  darkly  beautiful  as  that  of  the  French 
Breval's  "Carmen" ;  while  in  Dulce's  eager  waiting  eyes 
was  a  lustre  such  as  Spain's  great  Zuloaga  had  seen 
when  he  painted  the  Frenchwoman  in  it — a  lustre  as  if 
a  rosy  light  of  life  itself  were  burning  before  her  and 
burnishing  her  features  in  deliberate  place  of  the  tavern- 
fire  of  Spain's  super  pigment-master's  masterly  Romance. 
And  too,  she  was  quite  like  the  great  thing  in  more  than 
her  rich  manner  of  countenance  and  her  Chinoesque 
manton,  for  the  light,  in  verity,  was  from  within,  an 
expression  that,  externally  mingling  with,  and  painting 
her  in,  the  gas-flare  of  the  wings,  exposed  her  soul,  and 
in  this  moment  that  taut  soul  was  an  apotheosis  of  the 
two  opposed  forces  of  her  nature  and  her  life — it  was  both 
virtuosic  and  mature. 

Lost  as  she  was  in  the  music  that  with  each  phrase 
fetched  her  nearer  to  her  great  instant,  yet  the  great 
memories  were  flashing  in  a  radiating  stream  before  her. 
She  remembered,  afterward,  having  wondered,  swiftly, 
intensely,  if  the  riot-coloured  vision  of  the  Louvre  could 
show  in  her  eyes  and  sound  in  her  voice,  as  she  had  told 
Dona  Rina  it  would.  .  .  .  Then  a  few  words  of  spoken 
dialogue  smote  in  her  ears,  followed  swiftly  by  a  fatal 
phrase  of  the  orchestra,  and  Dulce,  calmly  beautiful  as 
a  swaying  exotic  flower,  was  no  longer  in  the  wings,  but 
walking  at  last  into  her  natural  home.  .  .  . 

Her  final  consciousness  of  herself  and  of  the  past  was 
a  vague,  instinctive  insistence  of  her  mind  upon  the  struc- 
ture, plain  to  her  lately  developed  sense  as  an  architec- 
tural design,  that  she  had  conceived  of  her  role.  After 
that,  she  was  in  the  living  present,  moving,  singing. 

She  scarcely  heard  her  voice  until,  as  it  grew  seem- 
ingly of  its  own  will  bigger  and  bigger  in  the  unfamiliar 
freedom  of  the  great  auditorium,  she  became  aware  of  the 


206  The  Great  Way 

stillness  of  the  hundreds — the  complete  stillness  of  willing 
silence,  rare  indeed  for  the  thoroughly  Spanish  Tivoli, 
which  for  a  voice  was  to  a  nicety  crowded.  She  felt  the 
dropping  of  cigarettes  and  the  lifting  drift  of  their  blue 
smoke,  the  stealthy,  quiet  bending  forward  of  heads; 
but  most  of  all,  last  as  first,  the  utter  and  unnatural 
silence  of  her  country-people.  In  it,  clear  and  lilting  and 
full,  liberated  and  limpid,  seeming  to  float,  and  poise, 
and  float  on  again,  Dulce's  voice  was  singing  its  way 
that  was  to  lead,  in  very  truth,  through  long,  long 
distances. 

Her  own  voice  was  singing;  her  own  people  were 
listening. 

Her  own,  and  her  own;  and  she  herself  was  listening 
now,  too,  even  as  she  poured  and  poured  it  out,  to  the 
voice  that  was  to  sound  around  the  world. 

Quivering  as  she  leaned  against  a  canvas  set,  she 
heard  from  the  wings  the  stamping,  the  shouts,  the  mad 
clapping.  And  through  it  all,  she  heard  the  hoarse  ex- 
citement of  the  two  managers,  crying  snatches  of  sen- 
tences beside  her.  .  .  .  "Gran  exito !  Success !  .  .  . 
Gran  exito,  senorita!" 

And  it  was.  ...  A  great  End,  that  was  a  great 
Beginning.  .  .  . 

"Of  course,"  shouted  Dulce.  "I  told  you  all  along 
it  would  be!" 

Suddenly  remembering,  she  rushed  to  her  dressing- 
room  for  her  swift  costume  change ;  made  it ;  rushed  back. 

"You  are  in  time,  senorita,  you  are  in  time !" 

She  was  dressed  in  scarlet  now.  She  went  on  swing- 
ing with  the  orchestra-lilt.  Despite  the  costume  the  house 
recognized  her,  and  the  band  paused  at  the  momentary 
noise.  She  blew  a  kiss  to  the  mass  of  yelling  faces,  and 
the  great  silence  came  again  instantly  as  she  opened  her 
lips.  .  .  . 

Again  the  storm  broke,  and  madder  than  before.  "A 
chorus,"  she  thought,  both  thankful  and  regretful,  "and 
it  is  over!"  But  the  play  was  halted.  "Again!"  they 


Gran  Exito  207 

were  roaring,  above  the  stamp  of  sticks  and  feet.  "Again ! 
Again!"  And  flushing  with  delight  at  an  assenting  nod 
from  the  Maestro,  she  sang  .  .  .  and  again  .  .  .  and 
again.  A  trinket  from  a  woman  fell  at  her  feet,  and 
Dulce,  taking  her  white  flowers  from  her  scarlet  dress, 
kissed  them  and  threw  them,  and  ran  into  the  wings,  and 
there,  exhausted  from  excitement,  stopped  short.  But  the 
stamping  and  shouting  did  not.  The  chorus  stood  awk- 
wardly about  on  the  stage,  waiting,  with  witless-looking 
wit.  It  did  not  occur  to  her  to  go  on  and  bow.  The  Jew 
and  the  Catalonian  both  rushed  up  to  her. 

"Can  you  interpolate?" 

"They  demand  more,  senorita!" 

"Do  you  know  something,  anything,  that  you  could  sing 
without  orchestra  ?" 

"The  'Valse  Brune'?"  said  Dulce.  "Any  orchestra 
would  know  that." 

"The  'Valse  Brune'?     What  is  it?" 

"The  Apache  waltz — the  'Cavalier  de  la  Luna* — you 
must  know  'La  Apache'!" 

"Yes!     Yes!     Sing  it!     Be  quick!" 

"I  will  for  more  money — that  is  only  fair.  Shall  I 
have  it?" 

"Bruja !"  cried  the  Jew  wickedly.  "Are  you  the  devil's 
own?  Do  you  hold  us  up  when ?" 

"You  say  they  demand  more — so  do  I,  then!"  said 
Dulce  flatly.  "I  am  no  robber!  I  have  a  good  purpose 
m  it,  do  you  hear?  Shall  I  have  it?" 

"Yes!"  screamed  the  terrified  Catalan.  "Yes!  Yes! 
Go  on!" 

Dulce  stepped  to  the  stage  and  in  the  redoubled  din 
whispered  down  to  the  Maestro:  "La  Apache." 

He  smiled ;  and  as  a  rustle  of  expectant  curiosity  went 
through  the  house  she  stepped  hastily  again  into  the 
wings.  She  tore  off  her  dark-striped  gypsy  sash  and 
knotted  it  swiftly  about  her  head.  Then,  her  shoulders 
stooped  a  little,  her  gait  slouching,  her  face  transformed 
to  all  the  sombre  tone  and  meaning  that  her  old  terrible 


208  The  Great  Way 

life  had  been,  to   the   preluding  notes   of  the   song   she 
walked  out — slow,  brooding,  sinister. 

At  the  first  strains  of  the  familiar  melody  the  silence 
had  been  broken  by  a  rustle  of  applause  that  died  with 
a  snap  as  she  appeared.  With  her  love  of  effect  and  her 
keen  sense  for  the  unexpected,  she  turned  her  memory 
to  the  Paris  version  of  the  song,  and  the  voice  for  which 
they  were  waiting  rose  through  the  hushed  theatre  in  the 
sensuous  words  of  the  French. 

"Us  ne  sont  pas  des  gens  a  valse  lente 
Les  bons  rodeurs  qui  glissant  dans  la  nuit. 
Us  lui  preferent  la  valse  entrainante 
Souple,  rapide,  ou  I'on   tottrne  sans  bruit." 

On  and  on  the  lovely  voice  insinuated  through  the 
rhythmic  lines,  rising  and  falling,  on  and  on  to  the  word- 
less phrase  of  the  orchestra  which  swings,  as  her  ominous 
tense  body  prepared  to  swing,  into  the  lilting  brilliance 
of  the  passionate  refrain;  and  then  she  changed  to  the 
soft  liquid  beauty  of  her  own  tongue  and — Theirs. 

Into  the  great  voice  there  crept  a  great  cry ;  and  there 
was  a  great  cry  in  the  heart,  as  in  the  words : 

"Oh,  this  is  the  tune,  friends! 
We're  Cavaliers  of  the  Moon,  friends! 
Each  boy  swoops  down  like  a  loon,  friends.  .  .  ." 


CHAPTER  XXV 

MONEY 

THAT  thick  soft  night,  in  a  street  of  the  Gran  Via 
Diagonal,  whose  name  in  its  simplicity  marked  up  a  great 
symbol  on  the  house-corners,  a  queer  thing  happened. 

Spain — as  the  city — was  at  rest :  no  missile  had  lately 
hurtled  at  the  King,  no  conspirator  met  bullet  or  garrote; 
and  even  this  her  greatest  and  most  turbulent  cosmopolis 
was  humdrumming  and  had  been  long  without  excite- 
ment, and  it  must  be  to-morrow  before  she  would  wake, 
in  her  gossip-arteries,  to  the  available  if  questionably 
large  news  of  the  advent  of  a  singer,  said  to  have  been 
of  her  people,  who  had  just  now  torn  open  a  handful  of 
Spanish  hearts  and  senses  in  "La  Gran  Via."  Anarchy's 
claws  were  drawn  in,  if  in  no  more  than  a  muscular 
process  of  digesting  something,  and  Society  slumbered;  it 
was  an  everyday  night. 

It  was  late.  Theatres — even  the  dawdling  Tivoli — were 
done.  The  gay  city  was  gone  or  going  home  or  un- 
home,  to  sleep,  or  to  other  matters.  In  the  tall  shadow 
of  a  quiet  house  a  man  and  a  woman  were  speaking;  she, 
cheaply  garbed  in  fetching  black;  he,  more  expensively 
dressed,  and  with  fetching  voice  jocose  and  suited  to 
their  parley. 

To  an  observer,  had  there  been  such,  it  would  have 
proven  an  every-night  thing,  as  common  as  vulgarity 
and  as  necessary  as  poverty. 

Yet  to  such  an  observer  on  this  thick  soft  night,  a 
sight  very  strange  would  have  arisen  suddenly,  like  a 
gust  in  a  desert,  or  a  lightning-flicker  in  weird  clouds  at 
sea. 

While  between  this  man  and  this  girl  passed  banter 

209 


210  The  Great  Way 

and  protest,  by  them  passed  a  woman — afoot,  and  unac- 
companied, and  indeed,  plainly  garbed,  yet  with  a  large 
and  so  handsome  mam-ton  so  shieldingly  wrapped  about 
her  as  to  mark  with  a  legitimate  reason  her  being  here, 
now,  and  alone,  and  thus  constituting  this,  too,  in  itself, 
some  every-night  thing,  comfortable,  pretty,  and  as  com- 
mon as  industry  or  money. 

But,  on  the  yonder  corner,  she  stopped  short,  turned, 
and  swept  swiftly  back  along  the  shadowing  house-fronts 
of  the  Gran  Via,  the  heavy  lustrous  manton  now  swaying 
to  the  rapidity  of  her  stride. 

The  two  figures  which  she  now  seemed  purposefully 
to  approach  had  first  stared,  then  shrunk  further  into  the 
shadow;  but  her  determination  revealed  itself,  and  she 
walked  directly  and  unhesitatingly  up  to  them,  her  bright 
eyes  showing  their  steady  gaze  to  the  man. 

"You  seek,"  she  said,  "to  buy  this  woman.  Perhaps 
she  asked  you  to.  It  is  of  no  difference  either  way — 
you  are  not  going  to  do  it.  You  need  not  gape  at  me. 
If  it  were  not  for  men  like  you,  women  would  not  have  to 
take  such  money  as  yours.  Go!" 

He  still  stared  at  her,  flushing  with  shame  and  anger. 
And  she  still  kept  her  eyes  steadily  on  his  face.  Her 
arm  rose  in  an  imperious,  pointing  gesture. 

"Get  out!" 

It  was  the  hard,  inflexible  word  of  the  nun  under  the 
red  wax  blood  of  Christ  at  Mataro — vulgar,  but  so  in- 
tentionally, deliberately  so  in  its  manner,  its  tone,  in  all 
but  the  voice  itself,  that  it  was  lifted  above  the  nature  of 
vulgarity.  Masculinely  scared  in  the  searing  flare  of  her, 
the  man  left. 

The  astonished  girl  in  the  shadow  found  her  voice 
at  that. 

"How  do  you  dare," — it  was  the  angry  answer  to  the 
nun — "how  do  you  dare  to  come  into  my  affairs?" 

The  startling  woman's  words  were   ready  and   swift. 

"Because  I  have  been  in  exactly  such  affairs  myself. 
Because  no  matter  what  you  have  been,  and  why,  this 


Money  211 

thing  is  wicked,  horrible,  pitiful!  I  do  not  know  your 
life  except  the  part  of  it  shown  to  me  as  I  passed  you. 
But  that  much,  let  me  tell  you,  I  do  know!  I  now  have 
money,  honest  money,  but  for  a  while  I  was  as  bad  as 
any  girl  of  my  age  well  could  be,  and  now  that  I  am 
able  to  pay  back,  I  am  trying  to — every  centimo  that  I 
ever  took  that  way,  do  you  hear?  Every  centimo!  May 
the  Virgin  blast  the  fact  that  I  kept  no  count,  for  it  for 
bids  my  counting  now,  and  in  my  strange  unhappy  mind 
I  may  perhaps  never  know  that  all  has  been  repaid !  See, 
I  am  going  to  give  you  money,  girl!" 

She  was  with  trembling  fingers  unfastening  a  heavy 
purse  that  had  been  clutched  under  her  mantle. 

"I  will  not  take  it !"  cried  the  trembling  girl,  shrinking 
back  under  the  mad  heat  of  the  woman's  words.  "I  am 
afraid  of  you !  I  will  not  take  it !" 

"You  will  take  it!"  cried  the  woman  fiercely.  "You 
shall  take  it!" 

And  with  one  hand  seizing  out  a  fistful  of  uncounted 
silver  and  copper,  and  holding  the  terrified  girl  tightly 
with  the  other,  she  thrust  the  weighty  coins  into  her 
dress — her  collar,  her  bodice,  anywhere. 

"It  is  better  money  than  he  would  give  you!  And 
more!  Now  I  have  done  my  part,  and  may  God  grant 
that  you  do  yours !  I  have  given  you  much,  much ! 
How  much  I  do  not  know,  for  there  were  two  others 
to-night — but  it  is  nearly  all  I  had  with  me,  leaving 
enough  for  one  more,  perhaps !  You  can  afford,  now,  to 
be  good  for  a  time  at  least,  and  while  it  does  last,  oh, 
think,  think!  You  might  get  other  work  and  start  again ! 
Think  what  you  traffic  in,  girl !  Whether  you  had  excuse 
or  not,  I  do  not  blame  you — who  am  I  that  I  should? 
Yet  it  is  traffic  in  God !  Traffic  in  God !" 

And  suddenly  sweeping  away,  she  took  up  her  own 
traffic,  disappearing  like  a  spectre  into  the  limbo  of  the 
thick  soft  night. 

Nor  was  this  strange  incident  held  solitary  by  the 
confines  of  Barcelona,  gay,  indolent  Little  Paris.  With 


212  The  Great  Way 

stranger  and  still  more  strange  architectural  canvases 
backgrounding  its  hot  spiritual  action  upon  hard  glitter- 
ing matter  and  with  its  vehement  figure  diversely  cos- 
tumed, sometimes  obscurely  cloaked  and  again  recklessly 
splendid,  the  hectic  hands  graphically  jewelled,  the  sud- 
den presence  stepping  from  a  swift,  smoothly  running, 
abruptly  halted  car,  a  modern  goddess  out  of  the  ma- 
chine, picturesquely  terrible;  in  Great  Paris,  where  in  its 
obscurer  cruel  streets  the  woman's  tears  in  her  vehicle 
too  often  followed  bad  laughter  that  she  had  heard  or 
felt  upon  her  words  and  act ;  in  Berlin,  in  Rome — and 
too,  beyond  salt  waters  wider  than  the  Mediterranean's ; 
even  in  cold,  jingling-belled  Saint  Petersburg  ...  in- 
deed, in  many  great  cities  of  the  great  way  of  the  great 
world,  it  was  to  repeat  and  repeat  and  re-repeat  itself. 


BOOK   III 
THE   PAINTED  DESERT 

CHAPTER  XXVI 

THE   ATTRACTION    OP    OPPOSITES 

"WHAT  are  you  writing,  Wanda?" 

The  woman  who  spoke  was  a  little  princess.  First  of 
all,  she  was  a  little  American;  the  "princess"  was  to 
boot.  And,  as  she  was  in  the  terse  habit  of  putting  it, 
the  prince  had  evidently  thought  so — until  she  had  suc- 
ceeded in  converting  the  verb  into  a  noun  on  the  other 
foot.  Just  now  she  did  not  know  where  he  was,  and  did 
not  care  beyond  an  over-acute  inquisitiveness,  a  charac- 
teristic that  she  had  but  now  displayed  in  her  question 
to  her  friend. 

The  pen  scratched  on  and  there  was  no  reply. 
"Wanda"  was  a  name  suited,  as  such  matters  go,  to 
this  other  woman,  who  sat  at  a  luxuriously  appointed 
Sheraton  desk,  writing  in  a  limp-red-leather-covered  little 
book.  Daisy — such  had  been  the  small  American's  name 
before  she  was  Madame  la  Princess  Marguerite — said 
frequently  enough  that  "Wanda"  sounded  always  remi- 
niscent of  a  sinuous,  tigrish  Polish  or  Austrian  spy  of 
dubious  affections,  yet  that  it  did  express,  as  prettily  as 
a  name  could,  her  special  friend,  about  whom  there  was 
nothing  dubious  or  Austrian  or  Polish  or  tigrish.  A 
certain  worldly  magic  of  action  she  did  have,  an  elusive- 
ness  of  movement,  a  touch  herein  of  Cosmopolis  rather 
than  of  mere  Europe,  that  disclosed  itself  even  now  in 
her  calm  posture  at  the  desk — the  unconsciously  artful 

213 


214  The  Great  Way 

capacity  for  suggesting,  with  a  line  of  garment  here,  a 
droop  of  shoulder  there,  a  casual  gesture  of  arm,  that  she 
was  tall,  or  not,  or  statuesque,  or  precieuse. 

"Wanda,  what  are  you  writing?" 

The  little  princess  had  risen;  and  from  a  delicate 
picture  of  indeterminate  lines  scrawled  hazily  along  a 
couch  and  drooping  in  a  trail  of  soft  tints  to  the  floor, 
had  crystallized  to  a  defined  little  body  like  a  small 
pink  flower  tipped  with  God's  sunshine,  but  clouded  by  a 
gauze  bow  for  an  indoor  party.  She  stood  wavering  by 
the  desk  like  a  diminutive,  breeze-stirred,  insistent  growth, 
and  in  the  continued  unresponsiveness  of  her  busy,  silent 
comrade,  took  up  from  it  one  of  its  rare  statuettes  of 
Tuscan  terra-cotta,  gazed  long  at  it  as  if  it  reflected  her 
own  minute  and  lovely  person — which  it  fairly  did — and 
sighed  in  all  her  classic  tragedy  of  being  not  noticed. 

"Wanda?" 

Wanda  de  1'Etoile  laid  down  her  pen  reluctantly  and 
directed  her  beautiful  eyes  with  disapproval  at  the  little 
princess. 

"Daisy,  if  you  must  pull  out  petals — 'He  loves,  he 
loves  not' — do  destroy  yourself  that  way,  not  me!" 

"A-ha!  So  it  is  a  love  letter  then — or  a  love  diary, 
what?" 

"Not  as  you  could  possibly  understand  the  word  'love,' 
Daisy." 

"Wanda,  you're  a  pest!  And  please  don't  call  me 
'Daisy.'  I  detest  it!" 

"You  detested  'Marguerite'  a  short  while  ago.  It 
reminded  you  of  'infamous,  nasty  scenes'  with  your  hus- 
band. Poor,  poor  man !  Why  did  you  change  your  name 
for  him — the  first,  I  mean?  The  last,  you  had  to,  by 
law.  But  the  first?  It  might  quite  well  have  stopped 
with  'Daisy,'  or  'Forget-not-me.' ' 

She  took  up  her  pen  with  determination,  and  the  little 
princess,  after  an  attempt  to  glare  like  a  lion  and 
managing  only  to  stare  like  a  pansy,  sighed  again;  em- 
ployed one  of  her  tiny  hands  in  an  equally  futile  endeavour 


The  Attraction  of  Opposites  215 

to  stand  the  statuette  on  its  head;  and  with  a  third  sigh 
meandered  home  to  the  couch. 

The  only  similarity  in  these  oddly  assorted  friends  lay 
in  the  mutual  fact  that  they  were  gentlewomen ;  and  they 
were  this  with  a  difference:  one  was  so  by  sheer  instinct, 
the  other  by  birth — perhaps  more,  it  would  often  seem, 
perhaps  mere,  it  would  seem  sometimes. 

The  latter,  little  Marguerite,  was  utter  Anglo-Ameri- 
can— inclined  to  the  Anglo  in  point  of  speech,  while  in  ap- 
pearance (blonde,  bisque,  dainty  and  as  modern  as  the 
book  she  was  not  reading)  she  was  the  distinctive  thing 
that  means  not  only  just  one  country  but  just  one  city — 
New  York.  Wanda,  obviously  though  so  elusively,  was 
as  foreign  as  her  name ;  a  woman  beautiful,  dark  but  not 
black,  with  lustrous,  shadow-lashed  eyes,  and  lines  of 
mouth  particularly  exquisite  when  she  laughed  or  spoke. 

The  rare  adjective  "sumptuous"  had  not  come  amiss 
for  this  face ;  and  her  serious  beauty  of  personality  and 
person,  of  grave  spirituality  shrined  in  calm  grace  of 
body,  doubtless  had  for  the  trixie  little  princess  that 
curious  but  by  no  means  uncommon  phenomenon  the  "at- 
traction of  the  opposite,"  which  the  miniature  "royalty" 
domesticated  with  her  as  doubtless  had  for  Wanda. 

"Sumptuous"  was  a  word  also  for  the  foreign  woman's 
accoutrements,  which  subtly  subdued  the  trite  luxury  of 
this  New  York  hotel  apartment.  The  minute  appoint- 
ments of  the  delicate  desk  to  the  Etruscan  glimmer  of 
the  terra-cotta  of  its  ornament  added  the  soft  shine  of 
dull  gold  in  its  equipage.  Here  and  yonder,  pictures 
spoke  of  tastes  both  selective  and  deeply  personal.  Even 
the  disturbing  little  princess  was  like  some  objet-d'art, 
a  whimsical,  trifling  possession,  a  dainty  Dresden  china 
figurine  moving  about  in  a  toy  scene  of  toy  society.  And 
her  own  lovely  figure,  withal  its  ease  of  costume  betoken- 
ing this  afternoon  a  stay-at-home  plan,  betrayed  reckless 
expenditure  in  the  rich  simplicity  of  her  house-gown,  the 
fingers  of  a  richly  skilled  maid  in  her  arrangement  of 
hair. 


216  The  Great  Way 

"Wanda !" 

"Yes,  Daisy,"  said  Wanda,  calmly  and  without  looking 
up,  "yes.  It  is  a  love  letter — a  love  diary — and  at  this 
moment  I  am  spending  my  valuable  afternoon  telling  my 
cavalier  all  details  about  you." 

"Now,"  said  the  princess,  profoundly,  after  an  in- 
stant's pause,  "if  that  were  the  truth,  Wanda,  you 
wouldn't  have  told  it!" 

And  as  if  deserving  complete  relaxation  after  the 
weighty  intellectual  process  of  this  rejoinder,  she  lapsed 
into  considerable  silence. 

And  presently,  Wanda  laid  down  her  pen,  with  a  little 
sigh  of  her  own  in  its  passing,  and  locked  away  the  book, 
humming.  The  princess  pretended  indifference  and  turned 
a  leaf  of  the  printed  one  she  held.  Wanda's  hum  strayed 
into  softly  phrased  lines. 

"Silencieux,  Us  enlacent  leurs  belles, 
Melant  la  cotte  avec  le  cotillon 
Legers,  legers  Us  portent  avec  elles 
Dans  un  gai  tourbillon." 

The  rough-edged,  yellow-covered  volume,  "Les  Pommes 
de  Jacquot-Jacquette,"  half  flew,  half  fell  from  the  im- 
patient hand  of  the  little  princess,  and  its  noisy  flutter  and 
thump  put  a  stop  to  the  unfinished  song. 

"I  didn't  mean  to  interrupt,  Wanda.  I  wanted  to 
listen.  What  is  that  tune?" 

"Have  you  never  heard  it?" 

"I've  heard  you  hum  it  a  lot,  that's  all." 

"A  little  Georges  Krier  song.  It  was  popular  in  Paris 
a  few  years  ago.  I  do  not  know  if  it  ever  came  here." 

"It's  pretty." 

"Very." 

"We're  both  dull  to-day,  Wanda.  Are  you  staying  in 
to-night?" 

"Yes." 

"Would  you — if  I  asked  you — dine  with  Dmitri  and 
me?" 


The  Attraction  of  Opposite*  217 

"You  will  have  more  enjoyment  without  me,  my  dear. 
Therefore,  no." 

"But  ought  I  to  go  without  you?  I'm  not  a  bit 
sure ' 

Wanda  laughed. 

"Daisy,  you  think  me  cross,  to-day.  I  am  not.  But 
— but  you  are  so  foolish.  Why  should  you  not  dine  with 
Dmitri  alone?" 

"Do  you  call  it  foolish,  Wanda,  to  watch  the  pro- 
prieties? Not  that  there's  anything  wrong,  or  even  im- 
proper, in  my  dining  with  Dmitri.  But  being  separated 
from  Sergius  and  everything — the  look  of  the  thing " 

"Daisy,"  said  Wanda  slowly,  "from  the  various  mil- 
lions of  people  in  New  York,  perhaps  a  few  hundreds — 
let  us  say  two  or  three  thousands  to  be  very  safe — know 
you  exist.  And  perhaps  those  are  worrying  about  your 
conduct.  And  perhaps  they  are  not." 

"Wanda,  you're  deliberately  cruel  to-day!" 

"I  am  deliberately  sensible,  and — fond  of  you." 

There  was  something  even  slower  than  her  speech — a 
something  pensive,  almost  brooding — in  the  movement 
with  which  the  quiet  woman,  this  curiously  sweet  Wanda 
de  1'Etoile,  rose  and  walked  across  to  a  window,  where 
she  stood  between  its  sun-gilded  curtains  gazing  out  with 
her  back  to  the  reproved  little  princess.  When  she  turned, 
slowly  again,  there  was  a  further  something  in  her  pos- 
ture and  her  look  which  brought  the  other  woman  im- 
pulsively toward  her. 

"Wanda,  I'm  so  fond  of  you  that  sometimes  I  posi- 
tively hate  you !  I  know  I'm  only  the  size  of  a  straw,  to 
begin  with,  and  then  you  have  ways,  perfectly  silent  ways, 
of  making  me  feel  as  if  a  hurricane  had  blown,  or  as  if  a 
horse  had  eaten  me!" 

"I  do  not  think  I  am  like  a  horse  or  a  hurricane, 
Daisy."  Wanda  drew  her  down  upon  the  window-seat, 
circling  her  tenderly  with  her  arm.  "Let  me  tell  you 
what  it  is  I  do  think.  My  dear,  I  think  we  are  a  strange 
couple  to  be  sympathetic  friends.  Because  we  seem  to  be 


218  The  Great  Way 

not  sympathetic  at  all.  Yet  we  are  intimate,  the  word 
you  Americans  use  so  much,  like  the  French.  I  want  to 
tell  you  something.  You  will  misunderstand  it,  I  fear 
very  much,  instantly  and  perfectly,  and  the  end  of  it  will 
be,  very  likely,  you  will  fly  into  a  rage  and  go  out  with 
Dmitri  and  on  my  account  disenjoy  your  dinner,  and 
come  in  late  and  weep  and  kiss  me  and  say  you  love  me, 
and  if  I  am  sleepy,  you  will  call  me  a  horse  or  something. 
Yet,  my  dear,  I  keep  on  hoping  you  will  sometime  under- 
stand, so  I  am  going  to  say  it.  It  is  this :  you  have  in 
English  a  saying,  'A  drop  in  the  bucket.*  Dear,  you  are 
a  drop  in  the  bucket  of  my  life.  Dear,  can  you  under- 
stand so  much,  before  I  go  on?" 

"Yes,  Wanda,  yes,"  said  the  little  princess,  stammer- 
ing in  a  struggle  of  anger  and  fright  and  affection.  "I 
understand  I'm  only  a  little  casual  thing  to  you,  of  no 
importance!  I  understand  that  that  is  what  you  mean — 
don't  you?" 

"To  begin,  yes — for  I  have  to  talk  to  you  like  a  simple 
book  of  language.  Now,  if  that  is  so,  why  do  we  live 
together,  why  do  we  take  the  trouble  to  have  disputes, 
why  do  I  have  an  interest  in  your  unfortunate  marriage 
and  your  'love  affairs/  and  why  you  an  interest  in  me, 
whom  you  know  nothing,  really,  about  ?  Simply  and  only 
because  we  love  each  other — is  that  it?" 

"Yes,  Wanda,  that's  it,  that's  it!"  cried  the  little 
princess  eagerly. 

"And  yet,  Marguerite,  there  must  be  a  purpose  some- 
where in  such  a  matter,  and  as  you  have  no  thought- 
about  purpose  about  anything,  then  I  must  be  the  one  with 
a  purpose,  is  it  not  so  ?  Shall  I  tell  you  what  my  purpose 
is  with  my  pretty  little  pink  and  white  drop  in  the 
bucket?" 

"Yes,  Wanda!"  cried  the  princess,  weeping  now,  and 
wondering  vaguely  why  she  wept. 

"It  is  a  small  part  of  a  big  purpose,  Daisy,  the  pur- 
pose to  be  kind — but  that  is  an  unkind  word! — to  be  of 
help,  if  I  can,  to  every  woman  I  meet.  Now,  because 


The  Attraction  of  Opposites  219 

you  happen  to  be  closer  to  me,  I  would  rather  be  of  help 
to  you  than  to  anyone  else,  'and  unhappily  you  give  me 
the  least  of  possibilities.  When  you  know  your  need,  ask 
me  to  help,  dear  little  Daisy.  But  you  do  not  know 
your  need.'* 

"I  need  you,  Wanda,  because  I  care  more  for  you  than 
for  anything  else  on  earth !" 

"No,  Daisy."  Wanda  slowly  shook  her  head.  "No, 
you  do  not.  I  would  not  want  you  to.  I  would  prefer 
you  loved  your  husband  more  than  anything  else  on  earth, 
or  if  you  would  not,  could  not  love  him,  then  some  man 
whom  you  could  make  happy.  As  it  is,  quite  likely  you 
do  care  more  for  me  than  for  other  people,  but  what  you 
love  'more  than  anything  else  on  earth'  is  yourself.  You 
will  never  understand  life,  and  so  will  never  deeply  enjoy 
it,  until  you  love  some  person,  or  thing,  or  art,  or  just 
people,  more  than  your  life.  And  for  you,  it  must  be  a 
person,  I  think.  Art — you  would  not  even  flirt  with  it; 
things  and  people — the  briefest  of  amours.  It  will  be,  if 
you  ever  learn  at  all,  some  Sergius  or  Dmitri  who  will 
amuse  you  for  more  than  a  honeymoon  or  a  dinner — who 
will  amuse  you  quite  out  of  yourself. 

"Meanwhile,  here  you  hover  about  me  in  my  life,  as  if 
nothing  had  any  importance  except  the  little  matters  of 
every  day,  the  little  emotions  and  disappointments  and 
jealousies.  To  be  sure,  we  gain  something  by  it.  You 
gain  a  certain  understanding  that  I  give  you,  a  certain 
companionship  for  your  lonely  little  unsatisfied  soul,  and 
I  get — respectability." 

"Respectability,  Wanda?"  The  princess's  eyes  wid- 
ened and  stared  with  incredulity. 

"Not  the  thing  itself,  exactly — I  do  not  quite  need  that. 
But  the  feeling  of  it.  In  a  way,  you  are  neither  fish,  flesh, 
nor  fowl,  as  you  call  it. — Is  that  an  unpleasant  joke? 
I  am  not  clever  enough  in  English  to  be  certain. — I  mean, 
you  are  neither  married,  nor  unmarried,  nor  divorced. 
But  you  are  an  aristocrat — you  are  very  silly,  but  you  are 
a  lady.  So  when  you  sought  out  my  society  in  Paris, 


220  The  Great  Way 

and  showed  such  a  fancy  for  me,  and  even  wanted  to  be 
my  intimate  friend,  and  even  would  live  with  me,  I  was 
flattered !" 

Again  the  princess  stared,  too  astonished  to  be  angry 
at  the  transient  word  "silly." 

"But  so  are  you  a  lady,  Wanda!" 

"You  have  made  me  feel  that  I  have  achieved  that. 
You  made  me  feel  it  then,  in  Paris.  But  I  am  timid 
enough  still  to  wish  to  keep  that  feeling  about  me.  That 
is  what  I  gain.  And  you  must  not  cry,  and  say  it  is  only 
that,  and  that  I  do  not  love  you.  I  do.  Not  because 
you  serve  a  purpose,  but  in  spite  of  it.  You  see,  Dai — 

Mar "  The  voice  became  almost  a  rhythm  in  her 

hesitant  seeking  for  the  just  expression  of  her  thought. 
"I  mean,  whatever  you  are,  American  or  Russian  or  the 
French  in  which  you  call  yourself,  you  are  forever  prima- 
vera — always  a  flower.  No  matter  what  you  should  do, — 
swear  or  scream,  let  us  say — it  would  be  a  lady  screaming 
and  swearing.  Such  things  can  be — comprends  tu  moi? 
Positively,  I  can  picture  that  if  you  should  take  too 
much  wine,  you  would  be  a  little  tipsy  flower." 

"Why,  Wanda,  what  a  brutal,  unjustified  thought!" 
cried  the  wide-eyed  little  princess.  "I've  only  been  drunk 
once  in  my  life,  and  I  only  did  that  to  make  Sergius 
beat  me !" 

Wanda  sighed. 

**You  will  never  understand  me,  little  primavera,  even 
while  your  own  words  prove  me !  That  was  an  outrageous 
trick  for  you  to  do,  yet  I  can  be  sure  you  took  your 
beating  like  an  aristocrat !" 

"But  I  didn't  get  it !"  cried  the  princess.  "The  brute 
wouldn't  hit  me!  And  why  should  you,  Wanda?  For 
this  is  a  lecture,  because  you  started  by  telling  me  I  was 
only  a  drop  in  a  pail,  or  something!  It  sounded  like 
Sergius — and  was  probably  the  truth,  as  it  certainly  was 
with  him!" 

"My  dear,  I  was  serious  to-day,  as  I  always  am  when 
I  write  in  that  secret  little  red  book  of  mine ;  and  I  began 


The  Attraction  of  Opposites  221 

thinking,  how  you  miss  life — the  way  you  speak  of  love, 
and  of  'being  in  love.'  If  by  some  chance  I  should  give 
you  that  book  to  read — I  have  had  a  thought  lately  that 
by  a  possibility  I  might — in  case  I  died,  perhaps,  though 
I  have  no  intention  whatever  to  die,  or  something  of  an 
equal  important  instance  should  ever — Well,  if  you  should 
read  it,  my  dear,  you  would  know  better  than  you  do 
now  what  love  is.  You  would  know  that  for  real  persons, 
for  truly  living  persons,  there  is  no  such  small  thing  as 
'falling  in  love' — that  for  them,  it  simply  is  love,  without 
any  'in'  about  it." 

"I — I  see  a  little  bit  what  you  mean,  Wanda,"  said 
the  princess,  with  again  a  trace  of  child-like  tears.  "I 
know  I'm  not  worth  your  friendship !  I  know  I'm  silly, 
with  nothing  important  to  my  back  but  my  title!  And 
I  know  I  make  men  dangle,  and  disgust  you !  But  you 
are  such  a  friend  to  me,  and  you  do  fail  so  to  appreciate 
how  much  I  care  for  you,  that  I  fly  into  rages — and 
outrages — from  sheer  fright  that  you'll  get  tired  of  me, 
and  leave  me — lonelier  than  I  was  before !  I'm  so  afraid 
of  that,  that  I'm  jealous  even  of  Arnold!" 

"Daisy!"     The  voice  was  extreme,  reproachful. 

"Is  Arnold  coming  here  to  dine  with  you  to-night, 
Wanda?" 

"Yes — with  me  if  you  choose  to  make  it  so ;  with  us 
if  you  care  to  stay  at  home." 

"So  that's  why  you're  so  anxious  to  make  me  dine 
with  Dmitri!" 

Wanda  turned  to  her  with  a  little  sigh.  When  she 
spoke  her  voice  was  controlled,  but  its  quality  was  posi- 
tive. 

"Do  exactly  what  you  wish.  I  think  that  Arnold  is 
fond  of  you,  I  know  that  I  am.  If  you  go  out,  try  to  do 
so  without  hurt  feelings ;  and  if  you  come  in  early,  you 
will  see  whether  we  welcome  you  gladly  or  not." 

"Wanda,  you're  angry !     Forgive  me !" 

"I  am  not  angry.  I  will  not  forgive  you  because  I  do 
not  need  to  forgive  you." 


222  The  Great  Way 

"You  are,  Wanda!  Yes,  when  people  use  all  'I  ams' 
and  'will  nots'  and  'do  nots'  instead  of  plain  'I'ms'  and 
'won'ts'  and  'don'ts,'  they're  in  a  cold  frenzy !" 

"Daisy,  I  was  not — wasn't — born  to  English.  I  do  the 
best  I  can  do  with  it.  Make  me  the  favour  to  be  satis- 
fied! I  am  not — I  amn't — angry!" 

"Oh !"  wailed  the  princess.  "Oh !  'Make  me  the  favour' ! 
Now  I  know  you're  in  a  passion  with  me!" 

"Daisy,"  said  Wanda,  patiently  again,  "in  my  own 
tongue,  there  is  no  word  for  'please,'  so  that  'please' 
was  one  of  my  hardest  words  in  English  to  appreciate — 
although,  strangely,  so  strangely,  I  confess  it  was  one  of 
the  very  first  I  ever  spoke  in  it — as  such  things  happen, 
sometimes.  In  my  tongue,  there  are  for  it  only  such  ex- 
pressions as  'make  the  favour,'  or  so  on." 

Yet,  despite  this  educational  and  quite  generous  ex- 
planation it  was  quite  wretchedly  that  the  little  princess 
trailed  off  to  dress  for  Dmitri. 

Her  friend  turned  again  to  the  window  and  gazed  out 
at  the  far,  busy  avenue. 

"People !    People !    People !"  sighed  Wanda  de  PEtoile. 


CHAPTER  XXVII 

IN  THE  LITTLE  RED  BOOK 

MY  own,  my  own!  After  long  weeks,  again  I  talk  to 
you.  And  from  where  can  you  say?  From  America, 
from  the  Estados  Unidos  that  you  loved,  from  your  be- 
loved Nueva  York !  Yes,  at  last  I  am  here,  in  the  land  of 
the  conquerors,  and  I  am  waiting  in  a  perfect  tremble  of 
fright  to  conquer  those  conquerors !  I  have  been  told 
harsh  tales  of  the  music  lovers  of  New  York,  tales  so 
harsh  as  to  frighten  anyone,  the  very  bravest.  But  I  find 
them  difficult  to  believe,  for  here  have  I  been  for  weeks, 
having  came  on  purpose  long  before  the  season,  and  no- 
where do  I  find  anything  but  kindnesses !  Though  I  con- 
fess to  a  shudder  at  the  great  Opera  House.  I  have 
been  in  it,  for  a  glance,  and  it  is  cold,  cold  as  a  piece 
of  hard,  red  stone.  How  I  could  dread  that  night ! 

Well,  all  of  this,  my  Jose  Luis,  concerns  you  little, 
you  somewhere  off  beyond  unknown  distances  from  me. 
All  that  concerns  me  that  could  possibly  concern  also  you, 
is  my  love  for  you,  the  great  daring  love  that  has  made 
me  write  to  you  this  little  red  book,  with  my  heart  full 
of  the  tremulous  prayer  to  God  that  if  you  could  know 
of  that  love  that  has  so  lived  and  gone  to  purification 
through  the  fire  of  living — knowledge ! — you  might  per- 
haps have  the  patience — the  interest — to  read  on  and 
through,  and  that  you  might  perhaps  say  to  yourself  at 
the  end:  "Is  one  man  in  a  million  loved  like  this?  Might 
not  I,  perhaps ?  .  .  . 

.  .  .  Dio,  Dio,  but  there,  even  without  daring  to  finish, 
I  have  put  down  daring  words,  my  own !  .  .  . 

I  have  but  now  read  over  many  past  pages,  and  what 

223 


224  The  Great  Way 

a  tower  of  Babel  is  my  little  red  book!  Some  Spanish, 
because  it  is  our  tongue,  native  to  us,  in  which  our  voices 
have  long  past  spoken  to  each  other,  my  beloved.  And 
now  some  English,  because  that,  too,  was  your  tongue 
and  is  at  last,  gracias  a  Dios,  more  than  a  little  mine. 
(How,  how  I  have  seized  at  it  since  I  have  really  came 
here!  I  have  came  to  believe  it  is  my  daughter  tongue!) 
And  then,  ever  and  again  some  French,  because  I  know 
you  understand  it  like  the  others,  being  so  educated  as 
you  are,  and  so  clever,  and  I  am  so  very  fond  of  it,  and 
I  have  been  so  much  in  Paris,  where  I  have  begun  my 
little  book  to  you.  And  also  because  it  can  say  certain 
little  odd  things  as  cannot  other  languages.  Yet  how 
strange,  Jose  Luis,  that  I  should  have  to  say  to  you  three 
whole  languages  to  tell  you  only  three  words — for  all  that 
my  whole  writing  can  say,  all  in  all,  at  worst  or  best,  is: 
I  love  you.  .  .  . 

But  in  that  simple  "love  you,"  how  much  history  I 
have  had  to  tell !  I  have  lately  read  through  and  through 
to  see  if  I  have  told  all  importances,  and  almost  all  I 
have.  I  have  told  you  of  the  long  road,  through  the  dark 
of  the  dawn  when  you  left  me,  up  to  the  heart  of  the 
mountains  and  the  gitana  who  prophesied  my  fortune  all 
but  the  end.  (All  but  the  end,  so  that  in  my  ignorance 
of  that  end  and  in  my — in — a  great  nameless  hope,  I 
dare  even  to  write  to  you,  as  I  do  and  ever  and  again 
do,  this  my  little  book.)  I  have  told  you  of  Dona  Rina, 
wonderful,  sweet,  American  Dona  Rina,  whom  I  have 
thought  God  will  send  one  day — ah,  let  us  hope  for  many 
days ! — again  into  my  Gran  Via — because  it  is  a  part 
of  my  way  so  to  think.  .  .  .  And  of  Paris,  and  of  the 
House  of  the  Great  Voice,  and  of  Cadiz,  and  the  miracle 
of  fortune  there — the  double  miracle,  two  miracles  of  for- 
tune there.  I  meant,  the  voice  fortune.  But  that  would 
have  been  anyway,  as  sun  must  follow  moonlight — must 
needs  have  been  (what  dear  odd  things  are  there  in  your 
great  dear  large  strange  English,  my  Jose!)  .  .  .  and 
first,  that  miracle  of  Cadiz  that  was  not  "must  needs," 


In  the  Little  Red  Book  225 

just  pure  God's  miracle,  my  Isabel.  .  .  .  Isabel  who 
means  violets,  means  them  next  in  my  memory  to  as  did 
your  eyes  .  .  .  my  Isabel  who  means  violets,  and  England 
and  Friendship,  England,  that  land  so  harsh  in  my  imagi- 
nation, that  seemed  to  have  highway-manned  you  from  me 
as  it  seaway-manned  Gibraltar,  and  that  since,  in  that 
my  very  same  imagination,  for  still  is  England  but  im- 
agination with  me,  has  seemed  the  very  picture,  the  very 
name,  Friendship,  through  my  miracle  of  violets,  Isabel. 
.  .  .  Isabel  whom  I  do  not  simply  think  God  will  send, 
Isabel  whom  surely  God  will  send  one  day  again  into  my 
Gran  Via,  if  only  long  enough  for  me  to  take  her  into  my 
arms  and  tell  her  how  much  I  still  love  her.  .  .  .  Still 
love?  Forever,  through  future  as  back  through  past, 
as — yes,  in  such  a  respect  as  that — as  I  love  you.  For 
in  something  of  eternal  verity,  in  some  elusive  slant  of 
the  eyes,  or  whimsical  tilt  of  the  nose,  Love  and  Friendship 
are  strange  unmistakable  cousins,  dear,  are  they  not? 
.  .  .  And  then — the  rest  .  .  .  the  long  struggle  .  .  .  the 
work,  work,  work,  instead  of  the  old  walk,  walk,  walk. 
And,  at  last,  of  the  great  change,  the  great,  slow  change, 
sudden  to  know,  when  all  began  to  be  proven,  and  my  faith 
shown  right — when  it  began  to  be  not  just  work,  work, 
work,  but  work  and  triumph,  work  and  triumph ;  and  then, 
nombre  de  Dios,  entirely  triumph,  triumph,  triumph,  with 
the  work  holding  it  by  the  hand,  but  so  gently  as  to  be 
only  joy!  .  .  . 

Will  it  be  so  here,  here  in  the  cold  city  of  the  world's 
great  test?  I  can  say  to  you  yes  or  no  presently,  my 
own.  For  my  little  red  book  knows,  like  all  love,  very 
little  of  time — a  page  will  mean  a  day,  or  a  month,  or  a 
year.  Or  perhaps  ten,  twenty  pages  will  mean  only  ten, 
twenty  minutes  of  my  love  for  you.  And  so  has  it  been 
in  the  last  few  pages  that  anxious  weeks  are  spent,  and 
to-night,  my  own,  I  sing.  .  .  . 

Yes,  my  own,  my  own,  it  has  been  triumph!  ...  It 
is  still  to-night — or  at  the  worst  to-morrow  morning — and 
though  at  last  I  am  at  home,  my  wraps  are  still  about 


226  The  Great  Way 

my  shoulders — or  my  feet,  to  where  I  have  allowed  them 
slip  irregardful,  to  say  no  falsehoods,  while  I  have  breath- 
less unlocked  my  desk  to  tell  you  so  much:  Triumph! 
My  own,  my  darling,  I  can  hear  it  yet !  I  can  feel  it  yet ! 
Oh,  what  it  is  to  sing  for  these  people  and  to  know  that 
they  listen,  they  listen  more,  they  approve,  they — stamp 
— not  with  shoes  and  sticks,  Jose  Luis,  but  stamp  one 
great !  All  the  way  home  in  my  car  I  would  say  to  myself, 
how  can  I  exactly  put  it  to  him?  And  there  have  I  put 
it  just  right,  proving  to  you  my  cleverness  with  the  Eng- 
lish tongue — you  know  I  used  to  say  to  you  I  was  cleverer 
than  you  knew.  And  they  have  stamped  me  great  to- 
night !  This  has  happened  to  me,  to  me,  here  in  the  Nueva 
York  we  are  taught  at  home  to  fear — and  justly  fear! 
Not  that  I  had  need  to  doubt — not  that  I  ever  did  truly 
doubt — But  to  know!  And  to  hear  it  yet  in  my  ears — 
that  noise,  its  kind,  the  individualness  of  it !  It  is  an  ap- 
plause the  like  of  no  other  house,  no  other  nation !  Good 
night,  my  own!  A  soft  grey  light,  like  a  pearl,  comes 
in  through  the  window.  I  love  you 

It  has  occurred  to  my  mind,  my  own,  that  there  are 
some  things  that  I  have  not  told  you  in  this  my  Little 
Red  Book — when  alas,  it  is  now  nearly  three  little  red 
books ! — yes,  two  things  especially.  The  first  one  is — and 
it  is  such  a  bright,  gold,  cold  winter  day  shining  into 
this  Nueva  York  hotel  that  I  feel  cheer  enough  to  touch 
the  terrible  subject,  even  to  you — the  first  one  is,  that  I 
seem  to  have  gone  safely  beyond  my  payment  of  my  money 
debt  to  the  Trudge  Market.  I  have  told  you  in  these 
my  little  books  how  I  felt  about  that  debt,  and  how  I  was 
tortured  by  a  morbid  fear,  a  fear  that  I  never  would,  or 
could,  be  satisfied  that  the  whole  was  paid  back,  because 
I  had  kept  no  count  when  I  was  taking  money  from 
that  hideous  market.  I  have  told  you  a  little,  indeed, 
much,  too  much,  when  I  remember  how  you  shivered  to 
the  discord  of  such  music  from  me,  and  yet  too  little, 
because  while  I  was  yet  so  frightened  and  morose  about 


In  the  Little  Red  Book  227 

it  I  could  not  somehow  say  even  in  many  words  what 
I  can  say  in  few  words,  somehow,  now,  of  how  I  tried 
to  pay  back — the  money  part — riding  through  the  streets 
until  I  saw  such  women  as  I  had  been,  and  then  offering 
them  money  to  desist  for  at  least  so  long  as  the  money 
should  last.  Well,  it  stands  to  reason — and  I  fear  I 
sometimes  quite  lost  mine,  in  those  terrible  transactions! 
— that  I  soon  had  thus  repaid  far  more  than  I  had  ever 
taken,  for  I  paid  in  handfuls  of  money,  gold,  dear,  when 
my  voice  had  grown  to  gold,  and  never  counting — and 
God  knows,  though  I  suppose  it  is  a  hateful  thing  to  men- 
tion, /  was  never  paid  that  way!  .  .  . 

Dear,  gradually  and  very,  very  slowly,  peace  crept 
upon  me  in  this  matter,  and  there  came  a  certainty  that 
surely  I  had  paid  all,  and  more.  .  .  .  Yet  that  fear  of 
tlie  actual  figure  walked  with  me  at  times  like  a  night- 
mare or  a  ghost,  a  Ghost  of  Society,  so  that  I,  what  is 
called  a  lady  and  with  no  doubt  at  all  has  the  little  world 
of  one  about  her,  would  trudge  back  and  forth  in  that 
little  world  of  educated  things  and  people,  would  trudge 
and  trudge  and  trudge  among  her  pretty  properties,  her 
rare  this  and  her  rarer  that,  and  would  pray  to  God, 
saying:  "God,  shall  I  never  know,  know  that  all  is  paid?" 
And  at  last  God  answered  me  very  unexpectedly  and  very 
sharply. 

There  had  been  periods  of  forgetfulness,  of  what  I 
would  call  to  myself  neglect,  when  I  did  not  think  of  it  at 
all,  periods  in  which  I  am  sure  I  grew  and  developed  better 
and  more  normally;  and  these  times  would  be  followed 
by  moods  of  the  old  madness,  when  I  would  rush  into  a 
motor-car  and  through  the  streets  "just  once  more," 
"just  once  more,"  "just  once  more,"  that  I  could  be 
quite  certain  I  was  not  under  the  amount. 

My  own,  I  did  this  unnecessary  thing  once  too  many 
times.  God's  answer  came.  (It  does,  you  know,  my 
own,  when  a  thing  is  done  once  too  many.)  You  see,  I 
did  it  here  in  His  free  Estados  Unidos,  here  in  your 
intelligent,  sufficient-self  Nueva  York.  I  had  chosen  that 


228  The  Great  Way 

hideous  place,  Third  Avenue — lower  Third  Avenue.  I  had 
heard  it  called  by  its  pet-name,  the  Bowery,  and  having 
looked  this  out  from  some  dictionaries  until  I  could  add 
up  what  I  supposed  must  be  the  meaning,  I  thought  i^ 
must  be  very  lovely,  in  the  style  of  the  Ramblas.  This 
was  in  my  ignorance,  of  course,  not  alone  of  your  Estados 
Unidos,  but  of  Flemish,  for  you  see  there  is  no  grand 
opera,  or  at  least  I  hope  there  is  not,  in  the  Dutch  tongue, 
my  own.  Well,  when  I  have  came  to  this  Avenue  in  my 
first  inquisitive  pasear  of  Nueva  York,  and  expecting 
flowers,  and  intertwisting  trees,  you  can  imagine — or 
rather,  I  hope  very  much  that  you  cannot,  my  dear! 
And  when  I  saw  the  pity — ah,  the  lack  of  pity ! — the  hate- 
fulness — oh,  it  was  too  much,  and  late  at  night  the  mood 
to  do  something,  to — to  pay — brought  me  back  there  in 
my  car. 

And  instead  of  some  understanding,  some  gratitude 
from  the  girl,  or  at  least  some  cowardice  from  the  man, 
or  even  the  surprise  that  had  many  times  covered  my 
flight,  do  you  know — how  can  I  tell  you? — well,  do  you 
know — and  can  you  believe  it? — that  I  am  nearly  im- 
prisoned, my  own?  Yes,  the  lady  is  proud,  and  makes 
a  haughty  outcry,  so  that  there  is  instantly  a  crowd,  so 
instantly  that  my  chauffeur  cannot  flee  us  the  spot,  and 
so  that  despite  all  the  money  I  have  with  us,  and  my 
chauffeur's  capability  (and  what  a  wondrous  race  of  be- 
ings, my  own,  are  the  American  chauffeur!)  I  am  ar- 
rested, and  go  in  a  most  terrible  caravan  to  the  Magis- 
trate. I  hope  that  you  have  never  been  pinched,  my  own, 
which  is  the  terrible  word  my  chauffeur  used,  reminding 
me  of  the  garrote,  as  we  are  brought  before  this  dignitary. 
And  there,  what  with  my  mortification  and  my  panic, 
God  knows  what  would  have  happened  to  me  and  my 
career  but  for  still  my  chauffeur's  gifted  nature,  who 
whispers  me  what  to  do,  and  I  have  to  pretend  I  am 
insane  to  try  to  stop  sin !  .  .  .  And  indeed,  there  is  some 
truth  in  that,  my  own!  .  .  .  (While  even  so  it  was  most 
fortunate  that  I  am  an  excellent  actress!)  .  .  . 


In  the  Little  Red  Book  229 

Well,  it  was  God's  answer  to  me.  I  knew  that  in- 
stantly; and  that  His  command  was,  that  I  was  never  to 
do  it  again. 

So  I  am  free  of  that!  Free!  And  freer  than  ever  this 
instant,  at  last — having  told  you — if  you  can  understand 
that,  Jose  Luis.  .  .  .  Free  of  the  Trudge  Market  debt, 
dear !  Free !  And  I  thank  God — and  you,  my  own !  .  .  . 


Days  and  days  have  passed.  Though  with  so  few 
performances,  how  time  rushes  by  in  this  marvellous  New 
York  season !  So,  my  darling,  though  no  page  turned, 
more  than  hours  indeed  tell  my  little  dots,  before  even 
yet  is  told  the  second  of  the  two  most  special  things  in 
my  mind  for  you,  and  which  demands  courage  even  now 
to  tell,  not  the  variety  of  courage  for  that  last  writing, 
for  as  that  was  dreadful,  this  is  all  happily  wonderful, 
yet  needing  greater  bravery  still  more  greatly,  and  as 
well  a  happy  mood — therefore  I  write  it  down  at  last,  to- 
night, while  I  am  alone  and  so  very,  very,  very  happy. 
You  see,  I  have  just  now  sung  Violeta,  and  if  you  knew 
all  that  longed  to  be  and  did  not  be  in  this  my  little  red 
book,  no  more  would  you  need  me  to  tell  you  I  am 
happy,  though  still  would  I  have  to  write  a  gran  galeato 
as  to  all  those  verys.  For  you  see,  my  "Traviata"  was 
at  a  matinee,  a  most  different,  a  most  disconcerting  (I 
love  that  last  word,  Jose  Luis!)  yet  most  dear  audience. 
It  is  very  favourite  with  me,  the  "Traviata,"  so  favourite 
that,  as  also  I  am  very  wonderful  in  it,  I  chose  it  for  my 
premiere  in  Nueva  York,  and  then  for  a  whimsy  changed 
from  that  to  Juliette,  a  role  entirely  new  for  me,  partly 
from  thinking  it  cowardly  to  do  something  certain  (you 
will  remember  I  told  you  I  was  frightened  at  thoughts 
of  this  town,  and  I  did  some  self-punishment  on  the 
matter)  and  partly  because  at  every  great  debut  I  have 
tried  something  new.  Well,  I  grew  almost  sorry,  for 
there  were  delays  afterward,  one  and  another  accidents, 
until  to-day.  And  I  am  happy.  For  with  most  singers, 


230  The  Great  Way 

I  think,  the  "Traviata"  is  a  portrait  that  is  painted  once 
and  for  all,  not  changing  except  to  grow  mellow  and 
more  beautiful  with  time;  while  to  me  so  dear  is  it,  that 
always  I  study  to  put  in  something  new,  and  more,  and 
better.  And  to-day  at  last  I  have  done  a  little  thing 
escaping  me  till  now.  It  is  only  my  entrance.  And  at 
last,  here  have  I  put  what  I  longed  to  put  somewhere, 
somehow — I  am  a  lady  in  that  moment,  and  therefore  for 
the  whole  opera,  Jose  Luis.  It  is  something  such  as — 
ah,  my  own ! — I  did  for  that  moment,  for  you,  that  day 
at  the  watch-tower  on  Tibidabo  .  .  .  only,  applied  as 
should  be  right  with  the  lady  of  the  camellias!  Yes,  I 
am  happy.  And  so  must  it  go  on  with  me  as  to  La 
Traviata,  until  I  know  that  she  is  my  final  expression  of 
her.  That  will  arrive  suddenly,  some  time,  from  some 
strange,  great  mood.  Under  what  strange,  great  mood 
of  the  Great  Way  will  that  be  ?  Even  to-day  meant  much 
of  something,  something  to  me — just  the  adventure  of 
singing  her  to  that  big,  dear,  different  audience,  of  feeling 
that  audience  feel.  Am  I  too  precious  about  her?  I 
think  not.  I  think  it  is  well  to  tint  and  tint  the  white 
diamonds  of  that  role.  "Violeta"  itself  is  a  step  forward 
in  petal-colour  from  "Marguerite." 

But  alas!  I  have  begun  one  subject  to  you,  my  own, 
and  continued  another — if  I  have  boasted  myself  a  painter 
to  you,  let  alone  my  spelling  I  will  never  be  a  great 
authoress,  my  own,  of  books  to  the  taste  of  Elise,  my 
maid,  and  Daisy,  a  little  friend  who  is  dome-sticked — 
or  is  it  dome-stuck? — with  me. 

My  own,  that  remaining  very  special  thing  in  my  mind 
is  simply  this:  in  the  whole  of  my  now  several-and-a-half 
little  red  books,  I  have  never  told  you  why  it  is  that 
I  had  the  thought  to  write  them,  why  it  is  that  I  should 
think  of  you  as  possible,  in  any  way,  to  my  new  self,  why 
it  is  that  I  have  ever  even  dared  to  dream.  .  .  . 

It  is  because,  first,  my  own,  of  that  same  miracle  at 
Cadiz,  my  Isabel,  of  something  that  came  to  me  from 
her,  a  thing  that  I  have  came  since  to  think  of  as  a  sacra- 


In  the  Little  Red  Book  231 

ment  between  her  and  me,  so  great  were  the  giving  and 
the  gift  of  it.  So  great  that  I  gave  to  her  afterward, 
instead,  as  would  have  been  otherwise  my  natural  act  of 
giving  to  you,  the 'one  thing  of  my  property,  the  one 
material  part  of  me  that — that  had  never  been  bought  or 
sold.  ...  So  can  you  wonder — you  would  not  if  you 
could  know  of  all  this  as  I  could  speak  it  you  with  my 
voice — that  I  have  spoken  of  my  love  for  her  in  the  same 
breath  of  ink  with  my  love  for  you?  .  .  .  But  of  these 
strange  sacred  spiritual  matters  that  are  so  difficult  for 
the  pen,  for  my  poor  pen,  I  will  leave  most  to  your 
thoughts,  and  to  such  words  of  cleverer  mood  as  are 
here  and  there  in  Little  Red  Book  First,  and  Little  Red 
Book  Second,  and  so  on,  and  come  to  the  truth  that  I 
have  been  cowardly  postponing,  because  it  trembles  me 
so.  And  after  all,  that  miracle,  that  Sacrament,  was 
but  part,  but  the  overture,  of  my  great  reason.  Well  .  .  . 

It  is  because,  Jose  Luis,  my  own,  I  know  that  you 
did  not — after  all — marry. 

God  forgive  me,  that  is  too  large  a  fact  for  me  to 
say.  I  mean  only,  dear,  that  I  know  you  did  not  marry 
according  your  intention  of  that  time.  All  that  you  told 
me  was  "possibly."  I  remember  the  word  now  as  if 
your  adored  voice  were  saying -it  again  to  me  in  that 
little  room  of  mine  in  the  Carmen.  But  to  me  then  it 
meant  "Certainly."  I  put  on  it  a  capital  letter,  you  see, 
because  it  is  so  louder  a  word  than  "possibly."  I  never 
doubted  that  it  meant  "Certainly." 

Well,  I  know  that  you  did  not  marry  her. 

My  own,  that  very  first  year,  when  my  voice  was  all 
to  me  because  it  was  the  begvrming,  the  new  beginning, 
and  had  came  to  be  all  to  someone  else,  to  my  Maestro, 
whom  I  had  came  to  love,  and  yet  love,  next  with  me  to 
my  Isabel,  as  she  is  next  with  me  to  you,  and  whom  I 
had  really  begun  to  love,  I  think,  when  he  said  our  noses, 
his  and  mine,  went  the  same  way — well,  those  same  noses 
had  within  a  year  taken  us  and  our  dear,  queer  little 
company  as  far  as  Venice.  And  we  were  canalling  our 


232  The  Great  Way 

poor  great  way  to  our  poor  little  theatre;  when,  as  if 
sent  oilt  of  God's  own  harbour  for  my  sake  (so  personally 
kind  is  God  sometimes)  an  English  party  in  a  gondola 
passed  us.  And  as  they  did,  with  me  so  near  that  I 
could  have  touched  them,  one  of  them  was  saying,  "After 
all,  that  erratic  Jose  Luis's  marriage  was  put  off!  One 
might  have  known  it!"  Ah,  my  own,  my  own,  my  hand 
shakes  now  to  think  of  it!  Is  it  not  miraculous  I  was 
not  fallen  into  the  canal  and  drowned?  I  was,  with 
tears,  a  prophecy  I  had  sadly  made  for  myself  once,  as 
we  chased  them,  for  how  we  chased  them,  and  how  my 
wonderful  Maestro  helped  the  gondolier  to  speed  us  after 
— for  he,  my  lover  as  one's  loving  family  might,  if  one 
had  a  such,  be  one's  lover,  understood  somewhat — indeed, 
much,  because  much  understanding  me.  Had  it  been  a 
baton  that  he  seized  from  the  gondolier,  no  more  love 
and  genius  could  he  have  shown,  and  we  did  come  up. 
And  then  they  were  saying,  "How  beautiful  Venice  is!" 
Think  of  it !  Yet,  even  so,  Venice  was  beautiful  to  me 
that  day,  for  I  knew  that  it  was,  as  it  is,  after  that 
manner  that  the  Great  Way  must  always  be,  and  I  was 
content  with  what  I  had  learned.  I  would  have  been, 
to  God  Himself,  an  ingrate  otherwise!  For  it  said  to 
me  there  on  that  flashing  sunlit  canal,  that  that  broken 
engagement  was  not  just  a  fact,  but  that  it  had  been,  in 
some  way,  a  matter  of  some  great  truth,  something  that 
my  shaken  mind  must  not  be  too  daring  in  its  thoughts 
of.  Yes,  such  a  conviction  reached  me  like  a  message, 
a  call  to  me,  straight  through  space  and  across  the 
waters,  clear  as  if  the  Great  Voice  itself  had  again  spoken 
to  me !  And  there  then  happened  to  me,  my  own,  still 
one  more  miracle.  Yes,  my  own,  from  that  moment,  tliat 
great  sobbing  in  here,  though  you  cannot  see  my  hand 
lift  to  show  you  as  I  write  it,  that  great  sobbing  that 
had  been  with  me  without  end,  without  a  moment's  pause, 
ceased  in  me.  Like  Floria  in  "La  Tosca,"  I  had  already 
lived  for  Art  and  Love,  but  I  had  not  breathed!  And 
from  that  moment  I  began  to  breathe — indeed,  I  mean 


In  the  Little  Red  Book  288 

that  it  was  a  physical  thing.  From  that  day,  that  Venice 
night  as  I  sang,  my  breathing  was  different,  musically 
better,  and  my  Maestro  was  so  happy!  Oh,  the  sun- 
light of  Venetian  waters!  Ever  since,  sunlight,  too,  has 
been  something  different. 

So  you  did  not  marry  her,  Jose  Luis.  For  if  I  know 
you,  or  life,  or  music,  or  anything  in  the  world,  I  know 
this,  that  you  did  not  tell  her  of  me.  That  much  sacred- 
ness,  my  own,  I  know  you  gave  to  the  little  cheap  room 
in  the  Calle  Carmen.  Therefore  I  know  that  she  did  not 
give  you  up  (what  woman  would,  could,  anyway?)  but 
that  you  gave  up  her. 

For  what  reason,  my  own?  Oh — and  it  is  the  thought 
that  I  did  not  dare  to  indulge  that  Venice  day! — for 
what  reason?  Perhaps,  perhaps,  perhaps  because  of 
something  kin  to  something  that  /  began  to  feel  for  So- 
ciety just  then?  Perhaps  because  of  some  new  feeling  on 
your  part,  not  quite  new  in  your  thoughts,  for  something 
of  it  was  there  and  you  spoke  it  from  them  to  me,  some 
new,  and  growing  feeling,  growing  from  your  thoughts 
into  your  actions — not  for  me,  dear,  but  for  what  the 
terribleness  of  our — our  relationship  meant  in  the  scheme 
of  the  world? 

Or  perhaps — greater  miracle! — because  of  something 
you  felt  for  me  indeed?  But  Dio,  Dio,  how  did  I  dare  to 
write  down  that? 

Oh,  my  own,  my  own,  I  should  pray  to  God  that  it 
was  the  former. 

Yet  my  faulty  heart,  having  conquered  the  battle  of 
the  flesh  for  itself,  yearns  that  it  may  rather  have  been 
that  latter,  and  lifts  itself  up  to  God  quite  unashamed  in 
the  huge  selfishness  of  that  desire.  .  .  . 

And  yet,  my  darling,  despite  all  this  that  I  have 
just  explained  you,  despite  my  sacramental  communion 
with  Isabel,  which  in  a  great  imaginative  way  was  like 
her  bringing  of  you  back  to  me  in  possibility,  and  despite 
that  news  of  God  to  me  on  the  wonderful  Venice  Canal, 
so  slow  to  the  habit  of  Faith  is  timid  human  nature,  when 


234  The  Great  Way 

first  I  actually  began  the  Little  Red  Book,  it  was  just 
to  talk  to  you.  Just  to  tease  and  torment  myself  with 
the  imagination  of  it — the  imagination  of  your  nearness. 
Then,  as  the  unexpected  relief  and  comfort  of  writing  it 
grew  more  and  more  close  about  my  heart,  there  stole  in, 
subtly,  subtly  before  I  could  be  awdre,  the  desire,  then 
the  intention — almost — that  it  should  be  actually  in  truth 
for  you  to  read,  God  granting  the  possibility.  I  have 
of  late — forgive  me  if  the  speech  is  plain  or  the  vanity 
great,  my  beloved — believed  myself  to  be  worthy  of  your 
love — not  only  that,  but  of  the  best  love  that  you  have 
in  yourself  to  give  to  any  woman.  Let  God  judge  me 
for  having  dared  to  say  that,  Jose  Luis !  And  I  have  felt 
that  if  anything  in  the  world  could  make  you  believe  that, 
ever,  it  would  be  this  same  little  red  book,  in  which  I 
have  written  my  soul  out  to  you — my  new  soul.  .  .  .  Un- 
der what  circumstances  it  could  possibly  come  into  your 
hands;  under  what  strange  condition  of  impulse  or  of 
meeting,  if  we  ever  again  should  meet,  I  would  have  cour- 
age to  send  it  or  to  put  it  into  your  hands,  my  mind 
cannot  imagine.  Yet  to  the  mind  whose  every  little  nerve 
is  desire,  unimaginable  circumstances  seem  possible,  even 
imaginable 

•  •  •  ••••••••••••••*« 

Sometimes,  dear,  I  have  the  thought:  "If  ever  he 
should  come  again  into  my  Gran  Via,  would  he  even  recog- 
nize me?"  (To-day,  did  you  see  I  have  gone  forward 
writing  as  if  were  no  interval?  When  indeed  I  have  gone 
forward  toward  the  grave,  my  own,  what  with  that  little 
friend  in  my  apartments,  and  having  to  sing  other  grand 
operas  too!  But  then  after  all,  in  my  love  for  you 
there  is  no  interval,  believe  that,  my  own !)  "Would  he 
even  recognize  me?"  And  despite  all  the  strange  changes 
in  me,  that  have  left  little  of  the  young  girl  of  the  Ram- 
bias,  I  know  that  instantly  you  would.  It  could  not  be 
otherwise.  For  cruel  as  fate  may  be,  shudder  as  I  may  to 
think  of  some  of  its  cruelties  that  I  have  seen,  I  have  a 
great  beautiful  conviction  that  my  life,  therefore  my  love 


In  the  Little  Red  Book  235 

— for  with  me,  dear,  they  are  the  same — cannot  end  hav- 
ing been  completely  empty.  And  that  would  mean,  in 
turn,  that  there  were  some  moments  in  that  little  room 
in  the  little  Street  of  Carmen  when,  whether  you  knew  it 
yourself  or  not,  you  loved  me.  Yes,  loved  me.  I  breathe 
it.  Can  one  breathe  with  pen  and  ink  instead  of  a  throat 
and  air?  Then  I  have  just  breathed  it,  so  delicately  that 
a  blotting-paper  could  take  it  out. 

I  breathe  it  again,  more  faintly  still — so  great  is  my 
belief,  yet  so  terrible  my  doubt;  I  believe,  that  in  little 
unknowing  moments  you  loved  me.  ...  It  is  my 
creed.  .  .  . 

Granting  that  so,  it  would  be  impossible  you  should 
not  know  me  instantly.  ...  I  spend  hours  and  hours  of 
my  life  wondering  where  you  are  .  .  .  how  you  are.  .  .  . 
Yes,  even  who  you  are,  for  your  last  name,  my  own,  I 
never  knew.  .  .  .  Are  you  an  idle  man  still,  or  have  you 
taken  up  your  dear  gone  padre's  great  businesses  in 
Mexico — how  I  hate  that  ugly  "x,"  about  which  I  quar- 
relled with  Lola  the  day  I  spoke  to  you,  but  which  I 
now  know  in  my  education  is  correct,  indeed  necessary, 
to  write,  while  it  stops  also  correct  to  speak  it  aitch. 
"Aitch"!  Now  am  I  educated? — or  by  some  chance  have 
you  become  perhaps  an  artist  of  some  kind,  or  some  other 
kind  of  famous  person?  I  think  not  any  of  these  unless 
the  first,  the  great  rich  businesses,  for  though  I  have 
just  now  said  I  do  not  know  your  name,  my  eye  would 
have  caught  instantly  the  "Jose  Luis"  out  of  a  whole  large 
newspaper  page  of  smallest  newspaper  print.  .  .  .  As 
it  sprang  at  me  like  a  star,  no,  like  a  sun  itself,  out 
of  the  sunlight  of  that  oh  how  sunlit  canal  that  Venice 
day!  .  .  . 

If  the  miracle  I  dream  of  should  happen  and  we  should 
meet,  how  changed  you  would  find  me!  I  am  right,  in- 
deed I  think  I  am,  when  I  say  that  of  that  girl  of  the 
Ramblas  but  little  is  left  staying.  Sometimes  I  feel  that 
I  am  not  myself,  even  a  self,  at  all,  for  I  feel  that  I  am 
almost  totally  but  little  bits,  little  thises  and  thats,  of 


236  The  Great  Way 

other  people.  Because  I  have  built  myself  so  much  out  of 
others,  out  of  what  I  have  seen  and  heard.  Since  I  have 
came  here  I  am  told  that  I  am  a  little  like  Nordica.  How 
that  delights  me!  I  know  that  in  one  respect  I  am.  I 
had  seen  her  often,  and  had  thought  her  an  heroic.  And 
do  you  know  that  upon  meeting  her,  which  I  had  the  joy 
to  do  one  time,  I  found  that  she — she,  Nordica ! — was 
less  tall  than  myself?  And  it  put  a  wonderful  tiling  into 
my  mind :  I  knew  then  that  forevermore  afterward,  I  could 
look  any  size  I  might  choose  to  on  the  stage.  And  the 
singing  angel — she  showed  me  how  to  do  it.  In  one  min- 
ute she  showed  me!  ... 

But  oh,  my  dear,  my  dear,  what  I  began  to  say  to-day, 
here  in  the  middle  of  my  latest  little  red  book,  was  not 
that  my  personality  and — and  looks,  if  I  may  say — are 
changed  and — and — better!  (Yes!) 

I  was  going  to  write — with  self-flattery  if  it  must  seem 
so — that  my  soul  is  changed!  Do  you  think  I  love  you 
as  I  used  to?  Never!  Never!  .  .  .  Yes,  the  nature  of 
that  old  love  is  there.  (And  if  it  is  God's  truth,  then  it 
is  a  truth  that  may  be  written,  that  I  think,  I  believe,  that 
He  gives  me  the  right  of  the  nature  of  that  love — with 
you.)  Yet  it  is  a  different  love,  Jose  Luis!  Oh,  what  a 
different,  different  love!  ...  It  is  a  love,  dear,  through 
which  I  could  happily  die  having  once  just  laid  the  palm 
of  my  hand  upon  your  forehead,  if  you  would  lay  your 
hand  upon  that  hand.  ...  I  believe,  sometimes  I  am  cer- 
tain that  I  know,  that  I  have  now  a  good  soul!  Oh,  with 
a  new  soul,  is  not  the  past  dead,  Jose  Luis?  With  a 
totally  new  soul,  is  not  the  past  wiped  out?  Yet  I  have 
times  of  fear — fear  that  all  this  change  is  only  like  a 
cosmetic,  a  coat  of  paint — an  americana,  to  make  a  tragi- 
cal cleverness  of  words  (as  I  remember  I  did  one  time, 
without  one  single  tact,  to  dear  Dona  Rina !)  yes,  like  a 
costume — perhaps  the  skin  of  a  snake — like  a  something 
that  covers  me  only  as  this  beautiful  bit  of  Etruscan 
terra-cotta  covers  in  my  ink  .  .  .  that  ink  with  which  I 
try  to  express  my  soul.  ...  Is  it  perhaps  that  my  soul 


In  the  Little  Red  Book  237 

is  rightly  so  expressed — by  ink?  .  .  .  Ah,  surely  not! 
For  Dio,  sometimes  I  think  I  have  been  boiled  in  nitric 
acid  enough  to  make  more  than  only  the  outer  shell 
Etruscan !  .  .  . 

My  own,  I  have  never  told  you  of  my  funny  little 
friend  Marguerite — Daisy  is  more  right,  for  she  is  Amer^ 
ican.  I  have  spoken  of  her,  yes — possibly  more  than 
once.  Instance,  I  did  even  to-day.  So  doubtless  you 
know  what  is  the  case  (how  I  persist  to  speak  as  if  you 
were  indeed  to  read  what  I  write,  even  just  as  it  is  a  quite 
opposite  possibility  that  I  am  arriving  to  tell  of  now!) 
that  she  is  my  close  friend,  alive  with  me  in  my  apart- 
ments. So  it  is,  anyway;  but  it  happens  now,  through 
some  thoughts  of  mine  lately,  that  I  must  make  her  plain 
to  you.  But  I  must  take  care  my  writings  in  English, 
my  dear,  for  I  think  I  have  there  said  something  against 
Daisy's  looks,  which  are  beautiful.  Anyway,  then,  she  is 
an  American,  young,  rich,  indulged — likewise  self-in- 
dulged— and  pretty,  who  marries  a  Russian  title,  truly 
believing  herself,  I  truly  believe,  "in  love."  I  also  truly 
believe  that  she  truly  believes  herself  a  good  Catholic. 
Therefore  she  leaves  her  mistake,  that  is,  her  husband,  in 
a  fearful  rage,  yet  does  not  divorce  it ;  and  remains  quite 
miserable  ever  since — to  advantage,  for  she  is  hereby  the 
higher  prize  to  danglers-on,  and  moreover  the  prettier  for 
what  she  considers  grief.  And  to  greater  advantage  than 
even  she  herself,  with  all  her  valuation  of  that  title,  knows, 
too,  for  such  very  difficulties  may  divert  some  second 
calamity  of  too  much  haste.  Now,  my  own,  smile  if  you 
will  at  me  saying  so,  but  7  do  not  think  her  a  good  Catho- 
lic— let  me  say  it  that  in  that  matter  she  is  not  at  all 
what  I  think  other  people  ought  to  be !  Of  course  in  the 
end  she  will  not  stay  undivorced,  for  she  will  ultimately 
be  what  herself  inside  is,  and  Catholic  or  not,  that  whole 
Daisy  is  Church  of  English,  incarnate  and  in  miniature. 
Anyway,  and  which  I  am  much  interested  to  find  sud- 
denly out,  having  already  said  that  much  to  myself  from 
my  observations  of  people,  she  is  but  a  Catholic  adopt. 


238  The  Great  Way 

And  for  what  a  reason  can  you  imagine,  my  own?  Be- 
cause it  is  smart  to  be  a  Catholic  here  in  this  country, 
where  nobody  else  is,  and  shows  her  to  be  travelled !  My 
own!  Now,  smart,  my  own,  is  one  of  the  American  slangs 
I  do  not  quite  understand,  though  by  diligence  I  will 
yet,  for  the  book  says  to  sting  and  burn,  or  to  be  clever. 
But  it  also  means  something  that  Daisy  is  and  wants 
to  be  more  so,  so — she  is  a  Catholic !  Yet  my  dear,  so 
far  as  her  marriage  is  concerned,  what  she  really  is  is  a 
Holy  Orthodox-Catholic  Apostolic  Greco-Russian,  for  by 
that  Church  was  she  performed  in  marriage  or  she  could 
not  have  got  her  title !  In  my  liking  for  words  I  learned 
the  name,  but  could  not  in  Russian  because  Daisy  knows 
no  Russian  except  some  pet-names.  And  that  Catholic 
Church,  my  dear,  allows  divorce!  So  where  is  one?  And 
where  is  Daisy? 

Again  anyway,  she  was  in  Paris  last  season,  and  seeks 
me  out  there  simply  out  of  a  fancy  to  know  me,  and  hav- 
ing heard  me  in  Petersburg  the  winter  I  was  quite  a 
Russian  furore.  Then  afterward  she  becomes  sincerely 
fond  of  me.  Well,  because  of  this  and  a  hundred  more 
pretty,  unreasonable  reasons  about  her,  I  have  a  great 
tenderness  for  her.  I  wish,  oh  how  I  wish,  that  I  could 
make  her  happy !  I  cannot  yet,  cannot  even  tend  toward 
it  within  a  friend's  boundary,  I  mean,  for  I  can  think  of  no 
instrument  to  my  hand,  no  knife,  no  chisel,  that  would 
open  her  mind.  It  will  open — like  a  blossom  under  a 
shower.  Some  pretty  day — a  day  in  May  it  would  be,  I 
think — all  those  splendid  Churches  in  her  brain  will  totter 
and  dissolve  and  be  no  more,  and  the  faith  that  just  so 
happens  to  be  my  chosen  one,  the  simple  knowing  and 
feeling  of  love,  will  take  her.  And  all  those  great  Cathe- 
drals will  survive  her,  and  not  one  stone  the  looser  for 
what  7  would  think  her  meantime  falsehoods  and  blandish- 
ments upon  them! 

And  why  have  I  this  trifling  bouquet  importantly  to 
my  heart?  My  own,  life  is  full  of  love,  but  so  many  ships 
and  trains  of  it  go  by  us !  Nor  do  we  ever  give  without 


In  the  Little  Red  Book  239 

receipt — that  is,  if  one  has  an  eye  to  see,  a  heart  to  feel 
— an  instance,  though  to  say  how  and  why  would  need 
for  itself  a  whole  little  red  book,  because  of  this  little 
Marguerite  at  home,  my  own  Marguerite  is  better  at  the 
Opera.  Yes,  believe  it — since  I  have  known  her,  some- 
thing more  of  daintiness,  something  more  of  pathos.  ... 
And  still,  why  all  this  to  you?  I  have  arrived  to  it. 

You  know  I  love  to  help  women.  Dona  Rina  and 
others — exquisite  Simpatica,  for  an  example — educated 
me  to  that  love,  though  I  like  and  pride  myself  to  think 
I  had  at  least  some  of  it  by  nature;  and  my  Isabel,  I 
think,  completed  that  education — "turned  me  fbrth,"  I 
think  the  English  says,  as  from  a  whole  school  of  life 
in  it.  And  I  have  been  so  discouraged  of  ever  helping 
Daisy,  that  it  has  seemed  to  me  that  only  the  hearing  or 
the  seeing,  the  understanding  of  some  such  love  as  mine 
for  you,  could  help  her  at  all  to  see  life  with  larger, 
gentler,  less  selfish,  self-hurtful  eyes. 

And  so  I  have  decided  this:  that  if  I  ever  should  find 
that  its  first  purpose  is  hopeless,  or  I  ever  should  for 
some  great  reason  turn  from  that  purpose,  having  found 
that  God  did  not  intend  my  little  book  for  your  eyes — 
those  violet  eyes,  my  own,  my  Jose  Luis ! — then,  I  should 
give  it  to  Daisy.  A  foolish,  possibly,  a  possibly  useless, 
a  perhaps  overintimate  thing  to  do  ...  yet  the  love 
that  tries  to  show  itself  here  from  time  to  time,  from  page 
to  page  even,  so  far  as  the  trying  is  concerned,  words, 
only  words  as  it  can  succeed  to  comprise  within  here  its 
little  red  covers,  might  better  be  expended  in  that  way, 
than  wasted — wasted.  .  .  .  And  might  thus  be — indeed, 
my  dear,  it  might! — that  silver  shower  that  would  open 
the  springtime  blossom  of  her  pretty  rosebud  mind.  .  .  . 
She  knows  nothing  of  my  old  life ;  not  unnaturally,  noth- 
ing; and  all  that  would  be  a  great  shock  to  her — a  mor- 
tification, possibly,  though  I  may  wrong  life  itself,  not  to 
say  sweet  little  Daisy  with  her  eyes  almost  as  loyal  a 
flower-blue  as  my  Isabel's,  to  speak  so  bitterly  as  that. 
But  any  shock  from  it  could  do  her  no  harm,  for  it  would 


240  The  Great  Way 

but  help  her  to  see — would  all  that  shock  part — what 
love  and  faith  can  be  (yes,  and  can  do,  if  again  it  is  self- 
flattery  allows  me  say  it)  despite  the  sordid  and  terrible 
in  life.  Nor  could  her  knowing  it  hurt  me — not  even  in 
some  material,  unimportant  way;  for  she  is  fidelity  itself 
to  me  I  know — indeed  I  have  just  named  to  you  the 
colour  of  her  eyes ! — and  a  confidence  to  her  would  be 
sacred. 

Well,  well,  if  this  is  by  fate  for  your  violet  eyes,  my 
own,  then  I  have  been  but  speaking  once  more  to  you 
my  inmost  thoughts,  my  daily  life;  if  for  Daisy's  so 
lighter  blue  ones,  then  they  will  perhaps  open,  and  cer- 
tainly understand,  by  this  late  page,  why  my  little  red 
book  has  been  meant,  after  all,  for  her — for  her,  little 
Daisy  who  thinks  me  so  severe  upon  her,  for  her,  little 
Marguerite,  out  of  all  the  people — all  the  flowers — in  the 
world!  But  I  will  not  think  that  just  now!  .  .  .  My 
heart  would  grow  very  weighty  if  I  did,  very,  very 
weighty,  my  Jose.  .  .  .  This  afternoon,  Daisy  has  been 
about  near  me  as  I  wrote,  pesting  me — whom  she  has 
but  now  called  a  pest — plaguing  me  with  questions.  How 
little  she  dreams  what  I  have  been  writing,  despite  her 
demand  and  demands  that  I  should  tell  her!  .  .  . 

And  through  her  chatter,  my  darling  (I  like  that  word 
"chatter,"  and  I  like  "darling")  have  I  succeeded  to 
put  down  according  my  intentions  all  of  the  neglected  or 
forgotten  things  (or  feared  things!)  that  had  gone  not 
formerly  into  my  little  red  book?  No,  no,  there  is  one 
more,  that  I  must  hasten  while  I  think  of  it — In  one 
way  more  of  which  I  have  not  yet  told  you,  I  have  greatly 
changed:  I  do  not  say  Great  White  Mother  of  God  any 
more. 

It  is  not  fashionable  here,  or  any  other  such  astonish- 
ment-expressions. 

But  I  will  say  it  again  presently  on  account  of  Daisy's 
Greco,  or  Roman,  or  Episcopalian — no,  catholic  interrup- 
tions, if  I  do  not  finish !  She  has  been  silent  for  two 
minutes,  which  is  ominous — it  means,  she  will  momentar- 


In  the  Little  Red  Book 


241 


ily  throw  her  book  about  !     For  to-day,  good-bye,  good- 
bye, my  Jose  Luis,  my  violet-eyed,  my  own  ! 


ff 
*~ 


••^•«" 

_1 


UXM 


CHAPTER  XXVIII 

PEOPLE 

MADAME  DE  L'ETOILE  and  Daisy  must  both  have 
lost  count  of  the  deceptive  winter  afternoon's  time,  Wanda 
with  her  absorbed  writing  of  her  book,  the  little  princess 
with  her  basket-ball  game  with  "The  Apples  of  Jacquot- 
Jacquette,"  for  as  Wanda  turned  away  from  the  now 
twilit  curtains,  possibly  stirred  by  the  diluted  sound  of 
a  telephone  ring,  her  maid  came  in  with  aji  announce- 
ment that  betrayed  an  hour  lost  somewhere. 

"Mr.  Arnold  Rutgers,  Madame." 

"He  may  come  up,  Elise." 

"I  told  him  so,  Madame." 

Madame's  eye-brows  and  shoulders  moved  a  little,  but 
her  voice  sounded  no  impatience. 

"Then  I  will  see  him  before  I  dress.  It  is  later  than 
I  thought." 

"Yes,  Madame." 

It  was  evident  that  Elise  knew  the  time;  and  quite 
without  her  announcement  of  the  imminent  Mr.  Rutgers 
it  would  have  been  plain  from  Elise's  appearance  that  an 
hour  at  the  very  least  had  escaped  the  prima  donna. 

Elise  was  a  pretty  woman^— very  pretty ;  and  in  this 
interregnum,  a  professional  moment  in  an  unprofessional 
costume,  she  was  chic  to  smartness — in  a  tailor-made 
coat  and  skirt,  a  beautifully  slapped  hat,  and  carrying 
Jacquot-Jacquette.  This  was  not  Daisy's  book.  The 
name  of  that  was  "Les  Pommes  de  Jacquot-Jacquette." 
Nor  was  Elise  carrying  that  dainty  creature,  its  heroine, 
either,  but  another  creature,  named  in  her  honour — a 
small,  silky,  quivering,  pitiably  high-bred,  pricelessly 

242 


People  243 

hideous  Belgian  dragon.  Elise  was  looked  at  when  she 
took  the  air — if  Jacquot  took  it  with  her. 

"Mr.  Rutgers,  Madame." 

Wanda  greeted  him  with  a  touch  of  the  hand,  a  touch 
of  words.  The  distinguished  young  man  answered  in 
kind.  His  only  very  distinct  salutation  was  to  Elise. 

Elise  curtsied,  dragon  and  all.  But  though  her  pos- 
ture and  atmosphere  spoke  a  certain  aristocratic  bored 
patience,  she  did  not  go.  She  had  not  been  dismissed. 
And  it  happened  at  that  moment  that  she  was  desired, 
for  Daisy's  voice  waved  suddenly  in  from  her  room. 

"Elise,  have  you  any  idea  where  Jacquot-Jacquette 
is?" 

"In  my  arms,  Madame  la  Princesse !"  replied  Elise. 

"Oh,  bete !  Non,  non !  Mon  roman !  Mon  roman ! 
Mon  roman !"  called  the  princess's  voice  impatiently,  and 
she  burst  in  upon  them.  "Elise,  you  spiteful  great  big 
fool,  you  knew  I  meant  my  book! — Oh,  Arnold!" 

Obviously  too,  and  very,  the  little  princess  had  lost 
track  of  the  clock,  as  she  had  not  supposed  Mr.  Rutgers 
here  as  yet.  But  she  was  not  displeased  to  have  dis- 
closed herself  to  him  in  this  wise,  for  she  was  beautifully 
done  for  dinner,  while  as  yet  without  her  wraps — speci- 
fically, she  was  in  a  very  low-necked  gown,  as  low  as  it 
possibly  could  be,  and  made  still  a  yard  lower  by  a  yard 
of  chiffon  tied  into  a  bow  around  her  small  lovely  throat. 

"Well,  I'm  glad  you're  here,  Arnold,  for  if  Elise  will 
slam  out  on  the  exact  minute,  at  least  there's  someone 
here  to  help  on  my  cloak !" 

"You're  not  dining  with  us,  Daisy?"  he  smiled. 

"No.     Wanda  didn't  want  me." 

Wanda  entered  no  protest,  but  she  had  a  cavalier. 

"She  did,  Daisy.    And  I  didn't." 

Arnold  Rutgers  was  a  rather  exquisitely  courteous 
man.  It  was  by  dint  of  this  fact  that  he  could  success- 
fully say  precisely  that  to  the  little  princess.  And  in  just 
such  moments  Daisy  was  just  such — a  Little  Princess. 
Though  she  might  not  have  measured  up  to  him  in  a 


244  The  Great  Way 

pugilists'  ring,  she  was  quite  as  tall  as  any  drawing- 
room. 

She  looked  at  him  with  a  slow  smile — such  a  smile  as 
might  appear  on  the  face  of  a  beautiful  kitten  if  it  could 
stand  on  its  hind  legs,  as  Daisy  could,  and  articulate  a 
few  frail  wisps  of  intellect,  such  as  Daisy  had. 

"Arnold,"  she  said,  with  that  smile,  and  her  little 
paws  clasped  exquisitely  under  her  chiffon  whiskers, 
"Arnold,  you  are  delicious !" 

She  was  thus  delicious  herself  because  Mr.  Rutgers 
was  a  man,  and  a  very  good-looking  man.  If  a  woman 
had  said  it  to  her,  or  anything  like  it,  she  would  have 
done  one  of  two  other  things:  if  an  ugly  woman,  she 
would  merely  have  smiled  that  same  smile  and  silently 
eaten  that  woman's  canary  behind  her  back ;  if  a  beau- 
tiful woman,  she  would  have  paused  for  one  instant,  and 
then,  swollen  to  three  times  her  natural  size,  flown  at  her 
with  a  yowl  never  heard  in  this  world  except  from  its 
one  actual  representation  of  hell  on  earth,  a  back  fence. 

"Never  mind  about  the  book,  Elise,  because  I'm  dining 
out  anyhow.  But  how  the  old  scratch  it  could  vanish 
between  the  last  time  I  happened  to  drop  it  and  the  next 
time  I  needed  it,  dazes  me.  So  do  be  civil  for  once  in 
your  life,  Elise,  and  if  you  do  see  it,  PICK  IT  UP!" 

"Yes,  Madame  la   Princesse!" 

And  Daisy  floated  back  to  her  room. 

"Elise,"  said  Wanda,  "I  will  dress  myself  to-night." 

"Yes,  Madame,"  said  Elise.  "I  knew  otherwise  you 
would  have  reminded  me  an  hour  ago." 

Again  a  little  something  happened  to  Wanda's  eye- 
brows and  shoulders,  but  again  the  voice  was  fully  patient. 

"So  you  may  go,  Elise.  But  about  Daisy's  book,  do 
find  it  to-night,  for  you  will  be  back  before  she  likely 
will,  when  she  might  want  it  and  I  might  be  asleep.  It 
disappeared  for  hours  last  night  and  made  a  wretched 
evening.  So  I  am  anxious  for  her  to  finish  it.  And  the 
sooner  she  does,  Elise,  the  sooner  you  may  have  it  to 
finish." 


People  245 

"Thank  you,  Madame.  I  finished  it  last  night,"  said 
Elise. 

Floatingly  as  the  princess,  she  left  them,  and  Wanda's 
guest  turned  to  her  with  a  smile. 

"I  see  men's  problems  are  small  ones.  But  then,  their 
luxuries  are  fewer,  too.  I  suppose  one  can't  be  valeted, 
and  have  one's  favourite  dog  exercised,  at  one  and  the 
same  moment." 

Madame  de  1'Etoile  gazed  at  him  incredulously — for  a 
long  moment  silently,  then  with  a  gasping  question. 

"Can  you  tell  me,  Arno,  you  thought  that  dog  was 
mine?" 

In  his  own  turn  for  startlement  he  found  no  reply,  nor 
was  there  time  for  one,  for  a  sudden  little  heat  of  words 
came  from  her — from  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  whose  subtle 
calm  was  one  of  her  loveliest  beauties. 

"All  this  time  you  have  been  believing  that?  That  is 
an  outrage!  Have  you  looked  at  it?  There  is  nothing 
like  that  in  my  character!  It  has  been  always  my  belief 
that  people  who  do  not  love  their  servants  do  not  deserve 
to  have  any,  but  let  me  confess  to  you,  Arno,  Elise  is 
a  catastroaf !  Elise  is  why  we  have  to  live  in  this  strange 
thing  called  Apartement-Hotel,  instead  of  a  privater  and 
more  particular  place  congenial  to  me !  Elise  is  why  that 
dragon  Belgique  lives  with  us !  That  pitiful  faceless  thing 
is  Elise' 's  chimera,  not  mine!  Nor  could  I  do  anything 
but  admire  them  when  they  would  not  allow  us  into  the 
Ritz !  Nor  is  that  all  of  Elise,  either !  Elise's  whole  parts 
of  speech  are  oui,  oui,  oui;  madame,  madame,  madame; 
and  when  I  make  a  very  clever  joke  and  say  'My  dear, 
my  only  Elise,  will  you  not  just  once  say  "us,  Madame"?' 
she  says  again  'Oui,  madame!'  and  is  silent,  and  nothing 
happens !  Or  else,  there  happen  just  such  confusing  sen- 
tences as  just  now  about  Daisy's  book — which  make  me 
suspicious  that  her  soul  is  not  monosyllabic,  in  the  least ! 
I  would  disband  her,  but  that  I  have  ruined  her  with 
patience  for  anyone  else,  who  would  in  consequence  brutal- 
ize her,  and  but  that  I  am  determined  I  shall  love  her 


246  The  Great  Way 

yet  if  I  can  by  means  of  trying  long  enough!  Ah,  well, 
well  .  .  .  glory  be  to  God  anyway !  There  was  a  time 
I  had  no  maid  at  all !" 

The  completed  come-and-go  of  her  little  outburst  found 
his  eyes  ashine,  for  travelled  as  this  man  was  in  human 
souls  as  in  earthen  cities,  this  woman  had  for  him  always 
the  fascination  as  of  a  tinted  Latin  town  for  the  American 
temperament.  And  his  chance  to-day  into  a  small  domes- 
tic vortex  of  her  left  him  glad,  glad  not  only  in  general, 
but  of  a  detail.  For  with  all  his  meticulous  love  of  her 
varied  rich  and  dainty  appurtenances — even,  for  her  sake, 
a  love  of  Daisy,  who  seemed  a  rightly  whimsical  part  and 
parcel  of  her  entourage — always  he  had  found  himself 
unable  to  love  the  shivering  Belgian  dragon  as  a  spangle 
of  her  glittering  pasear.  Surely,  he  had  been  dull ;  he 
should  have  known  there  was  nothing  like  that  in  her 
character.  And  now  in  the  great  light  of  her  petty  news, 
even  the  pitiable  shiver  of  the  poor  doomed  little  degen- 
erate beast  became  a  justified  part  of  her  equipment. 
This  queer  woman,  like  the  star  that  was  her  name,  lighted 
up  anything,  even  Elise,  even  Elise's  dragon.  He  had  not 
answered,  for  she  understood  his  silences,  and  such  perfect 
spontaneity  as  hers  might  not  understand  his  poignant 
enjoyment  of  it;  and  their  mutual  quietness  was  broken 
by  the  inrush  of  Daisy  to  depart  for  her  dinner — first,  to 
be  groomed  into  her  cloak  by  this  present  cavalier — and 
her  arms  overflowing  with  luggage :  the  cloak,  and  a  fan — 
enormous,  far  more  enormous  than  she,  and  with  which 
she  purposed  to  herald  the  re-entrance  of  fans  into 
fashion. 

"Thanks,  Arnold.  Yah  lub-lu  tea-byea-yah!  Or  do  I 
mean  the  other  of  the  two  things  I  know  in  Russian?  My 
God,  Wanda,  there's  Jacquot  right  under  your  desk ! 
And  you  always  swear  you  never  touch  it !" 

"You  threw  it  at  me,"  said  Wanda. 

"Why,  Wanda,  what  a  ghastly  lie!  Well,  lub-lu  for 
short.  Mouthy  thing  means  *I  love  you,'  and  I  learned 
it  to  please  my  husband.  The  one  I  was  starting  for  when 


People  247 

I  saw  *Jacquotr  means  'Good-bye' — and  I  learned  that 
on  his  account,  too  !  Wish  I'd  studied  more  of  the  beastly 
stuff.  I  need  it  for  Dmitri.  Well,  I'll  use  one  of  them  on 
him  to-night.  Perhaps  I'll  use  both !" 

And  with  a  final  pin-wheel  whirl  she  rattled  out  to  her 
saucer  of  milk  with  Dmitri,  beautifully  unconscious  that 
with  Arnold  Rutgers  present  she  had  been  an  entrancing, 
an  entirely  different  kitten  from  the  one  that  with  equal 
sincerity  she  was  alone  with  Wanda  in  the  long  hours 
of  the  day  and  sometimes  the  longer  ones  of  the  night; 
and  leaving  many  things  beside  impressions  behind  her: 
On  Wanda's  lips,  a  kiss ;  in  the  air,  a  drift  of  one  from 
her  finger-tips  to  Arnold  and  a  faint  essence  of  heliotrope. 
With  them  both,  a  promise  to  enjoy  herself  and  to  return 
early:  "Never  fret!  I've  got  to  be  back  before  Elise,  be- 
cause this  is  her  hat.  The  nasty  beast  wouldn't  sell  it  to 
me !"  On  the  window-seat,  the  fan — fortunately,  in  a  way, 
for  it  was  safer  forgotten  here  than  forgotten  in  public. 
And  alone  in  the  deepening  twilight  together,  these  two. 

"That  is  a  perilous  thing  she  has  done  about  the  hat," 
said  Wanda.  "And  I  am  rather  sorry  about  the  fan,  too, 
although  it  is  valuable.  For  she  has  taken  the  book  with 
her  by  mistake  instead,  and  the  fan  would  only  be  stolen, 
whereas  Jacquot-Jacquette  will  be  recovered,  and  be 
brought  here  by  a  liveried  servant  of  Dmitri's  to-morrow 
morning  about  six  o'clock,  to  be  put  only  into  my  hands, 
in  person  ;  and  not  by  mistake  either  on  the  servant's  part, 
but  because  Daisy  is  known  to  be  careless  with  it." 

"Why  six  o'clock?"  he  demanded. 

"Because  Daisy  might  want  it  at  six  o'clock,"  she  an- 
swered. 

"Burn  it!"  he  suggested. 

"I  would  not  dare — no  more  than  I  would  dare  to  burn 
Elise's !  I  am  in  despair,  really,  now  that  we  know  Elise 
has  finished  it.  For  if  Elise  lets  fall  that  to  Daisy  as  she 
did  to  us,  Daisy  will  have  a  good  excuse  not  to  hasten  with 
it.  Daisy  is  honourable,  you  see,  and  she  promised  Elise 
to  hurry  if  Elise  would  hurry  with  a  letter  to  Dmitri  one 


248  The  Great  Way 

day.  Yes,  I  am  despondent,  for  I  glanced  into  it  lately. 
There  are  fifty  chapters,  and  from  the  mussed  pages, 
Daisy  has  read  five." 

"I'll  take  her  to  my  studio,  and  finish  it  aloud  to  her." 

"She  would  be  found  asleep  in  your  studio.  It  would 
not  do." 

Remembering  that  to-night,  as  in  the  long  ago,  she  was 
without  a  maid,  she  had  risen  to  disappear  against  dinner 
— accurately,  supper,  for  she  was  to  create  the  meal  with 
her  own  hands ;  and  with,  it  always  seemed  to  him,  a  deli- 
cate something  of  the  pure  art  with  which  she  created  a 
character. 

"Why  do  you  trouble  to  dress,  Wanda?  What  need?" 
he  queried. 

Her  reply  was  with  a  slow,  arbitrary  little  smile. 

"You  would  deprive  an  opera-singer  of  her  vanity?** 

Again  the  curious  shine  came  into  his  eyes.  One  more 
facet ! 

And  now,  with  only  the  glint  of  it  and  the  inner  glow 
of  his  devotional  attitude,  he  was  quite  alone,  among  her 
rich-coloured,  sombrely  twilighted  properties. 

Familiarly,  yet  a  little  awe-struck  even  now,  he  moved 
about  the  room,  in  its  growing  darkness  so  softly  pendent 
between  its  walls  streaked  with  the  last  flickers  of  rosy 
western  light — his  tread  as  soft,  his  fingers  as  softly  touch- 
ing, with  hesitant  reverence,  this  and  that  and  the  other 
that  were  personal  to  her,  peculiar  to  her.  He  paused  with 
almost  a  quiver  by  the  Sheraton  desk,  knowing  that  he 
could  not  touch,  even  most  of  all  reverently,  what  he  had 
seen  her  most  reverently  touch,  and  that  he  knew  to  be 
locked  away  within  it.  For  the  big  artist,  like  the  small 
princess,  knew  of  the  little  red  book,  though  his  wonder, 
unlike  Daisy's,  had  been  silent.  Again  unlike  Daisy,  and 
with  the  broad  charity  of  men,  even  the  most  passionate, 
he  did  not  return  the  little  princess's  jealousy.  He  was 
almost,  though  perhaps  with  a  smile,  reverent  of  her,  too, 
as  of  one  more  possession  of  Wanda's — an  accoutrement 
characteristic,  personal,  as  high-bred  as  the  dragon  Bel- 


People  249 

and  a  trifling,  dainty  dream  instead  of  a  nightmare, 
and  with  some  equally  loving  reason,  he  had  no  doubt,  to 
account  for  it.  ...  Yes,  one  more  facet. 

For  in  his  meticulous  brain-concept  of  her,  this  woman 
in  her  inseparable  art  and  human  natures  was  a  stone  of 
water  so  pure  and  so  blue  that  in  her  very  brilliance  she 
needed  peculiar  backgrounds,  and  in  her  very  instincts  of 
unpremeditated  emotion,  automatically  acquired  them. 

Not  only  was  his  attitude  devotional,  but  it  had  been 
so  from  the  first  time  he  had  seen  and  heard  her.  Even 
to-day,  withal  his  permitted  nearness  to  her,  the  fact  of 
his  privileges  did  not  for  any  instant  wear  down  his  sense 
of  grateful  favouredness. 

That  "first  time  he  had  seen  and  heard  her"  had  been 
"among  the  people,"  that  concrete  yet  vague  locality 
wherein  she  herself,  strangely  yet  characteristically, 
seemed,  by  some  mental  means  of  placing  herself  there, 
most  happy — on  that  day  when  she  had  for  the  first  time 
in  the  United  States  sung  her  famous  "Traviata." 

This  growingly  famous  Arnold  Rutgers  was,  in  his  own 
right,  not  so  much  an  unusual  man  as  an  unusual  art-man, 
for  though  art's  sun  and  moon  may  have  risen  for  him, 
they  did  not  likewise  set  for  him,  in  painting — he  loved  art, 
therefore  all  arts.  Albeit  a  disciple  of  pencil,  brush  and 
canvas,  he  loved  the  art  of  taut-pulled  string  and  sounding 
metals  and  chiselled  human  voice.  Painting  may  have  been 
for  him  all  the  breath  of  self-expressing  life ;  but  he  broad- 
ly, charitably  knew  that  it  was  not  the  whole  breath  of 
art-life,  as  again  that  breath  was  not  the  whole  power  of 
simple  unqualified  Life.  And  next  in  devotion  with  him 
to  his  own  art-parent,  he  loved  the  art-parent  Music. 

To  "La  Traviata"  went  Arnold  Rutgers  habitually, 
exactly  as  goes  a  child  to  a  migratory,  periodic  carrousel, 
knowing  that  by  proper  dint  of  journey  and  expenditure 
there  is  to  find  a  diamond  in  a  tinsel  oyster. 

That  first  time  he  had  seen  and  heard  Wanda  de 
1'Etoile,  it  had  come  across  his  mind  with  a  certain  lonely 
timbre  of  thought — almost  bleakly,  like  the  thin  shafts 


250  The  Great  Way 

of  winter  sunlight  filtering  into  the  gallery  that  his  whim 
of  the  day  had  chosen — come  with  a  sense  of  unfamiliarity, 
nearly  of  loneliness,  that  he  was  hearing  the  big  hand- 
organ  epic  of  flesh-pot  and  soul-yearn  as  if  he  had  never 
heard  it  before — as  if  he  must  brace  his  mind,  his  nerves, 
to  draw  within  himself  all  that  could  be  drawn  to  build 
a  perfect  memory  of  all  that  he  was  yet  to  hear. 

The  impression,  penetrant,  suggestive,  had  come  to 
him  as  Wanda  had  sunk  down  on  the  rococo  couch  near 
the  right  wings.  "Mano  derecha"  she  had  termed  it 
afterward,  and  the  trivial  phrase  had  lingered  always  in 
his  brain  as  she  had  spoken  it — like  a  snatch  of  melody. 

Debonairly  she  had  carried  on  Nellie  Melba's  blithe 
reform  of  the  New  York  institution's  outre  version  of 
"The  Lady  of  the  Camellias,"  and  debonairly  she  had 
entered,  a  lovely  Violeta  in  swaying  and  resetted  crino- 
line, together  with  an  added  whim  of  her  own,  namely,  on 
the  arm  of  a  cavalier — a  great  lady  in  her  pathetic 
achievement  of  mood,  and  a  great  lady  dressed  for  an 
occasion,  too,  befanned  and  decolletce  and  radiant,  her 
posture  and  gait  and  costume,  the  swing  and  the  rhythm 
and  sway  of  them,  suggesting  a  ship  for  its  stateliness, 
but  a  cockleshell  craft  for  its  daintiness. 

An  impulsive,  self-hushing  ripple  had  gone  through  the 
matinee  house,  and  had  she  sung  not  a  note  she  would 
have  been,  already  and  past  dispute,  the  Diva,  the  Prima 
Donna  in  excelcis. 

And  it  is  possible  that  Violeta  had  never  been  as  greatly 
sung  as  it  was  that  day. 

Arnold  Rutgers,  at  least,  was  certain  that  it  had  not. 
In  the  end  of  the  ball-room  scene,  in  the  shower  of  bitter 
money,  both  the  man  in  him  and  the  artist  in  him  quivered 
with  something  very  like  a  shudder.  Afterward,  he  could 
not  remember  whether  it  was  through  hearing  or  through 
sight,  by  the  singing  or  by  the  look  of  her,  that  he  had 
been  momentarily  soul-stricken.  But  there  had  been  some- 
thing more  than  any  Marguerite,  than  any  Violeta,  in 
the  tragic  flower  of  those  few  instants'  pouring  music 


People  251 

and  flashing  vision  of  her.  The  intellect  guiding  that  voice 
and  that  soul  had  through  the  bruising  tinkle  of  that 
money-shower  propelled  some  terrible  thing  root-deep  in 
the  universe,  and  the  electricity  of  it  had  coursed  not  only 
to  Arnold  Rutgers  but  through  the  whole  vast  building. 

Also  afterward,  he  laughed  himself  away  from  the  im- 
aginative thought  that  the  nameless  communication  held 
some  obscure  fatality  for  him. 

Yet  even  now,  remembering,  he  trembled  a  little,  evert 
here,  among  her  household  deities  of  golden-handled  pen, 
delicate  fabric,  slender,  richly  tapestried  chairs,  glinting 
bits  of  Toledo,  while  he  marvelled  at  the  fortune  of  his 
nearness — and  of  her  own  familiar  nearness,  on  the  other 
side,  to  the  boundary  that  she  drew. 

He  had  sought  her  swiftly,  consciously  presuming,  yet 
determinedly.  When  at  last  he  had  met  her,  crowded  at 
her  in  a  chattering,  eager,  infuriating  reception-line,  he 
knew  that  her  moment's  hand-clasp  and  glance  were  for 
only  his  own  memory,  not  for  hers,  that  his  time,  effort, 
anxiety  to  this  silly  end  had  been  wasted.  And  when 
ultimately  he  was  successful,  it  had  been  through  the 
simple  expedient  of  a  card  with  "Business"  pencilled  below 
his  name,  and  an  explanation  five  minutes  later,  poured 
forth  from  the  inwardly  bent  knees  of  his  luck,  that  he 
must — he  used  no  further  word — paint  her. 

His  mind  had  leaped  after  her  mind  as,  through  inter- 
view after  interview,  a  delicacy  here,  an  intellectual,  half- 
inexpressed  prejudice  there,  prevented  one  costume,  an- 
other. 

Traviata — and  upon  this  very  natural  initial  choosing, 
for  a  brief  instant  they  had  thought  they  had  it.  But 
after  that  brief  instant  she  had  shaken  her  head  in  the 
serious,  lovely  movement  that  he  had  later  come  to  know 
by  heart. 

"Traviata  now  is  mine,  friend,  I  truly  believe  of  all 
the  world.  Yes,  since  that  performance  here,  that  one 
you  heard,  truly  I  believe  it.  But  Traviata — my  poor, 
poor  Violeta ! — I  am  never  letting  her  alone !  Ah,  with 


252  The  Great  Way 

your  profession,  you  will  understand — I  am  forever  paint- 
ing her!  And  I  would  prefer  someone  else  did  not  paint 
my  Wayward  One  until  I  have  finished !" 

And  at  this,  after  his  own  even  briefer  instant  of  fear 
that  he  faced  an  actress's  temperamentalism,  there  had 
for  the  first  time  come  into  his  eyes  that  curious  shine. 
.  .  .  The  first  facet.  .  .  . 

Mimi — and  something  like  a  sad  memorv  shot  her  look. 
"No.  That  I  would  like.  But  Mimi  is  Melba's.  Mimi 
never  can  be  mine  as  she  is  hers." 

One  deferment,  and  he  was  glad  of  more,  for  they 
had  led  her  to  say:  "You  will — if  you  will — see  me  in 
many  parts,  for  there  is  a  whole  winter  of  them  before 
us."  And  his  eager  questions  had  brought  about  for  him 
rare,  memory-storing  glimpses  of  her  exquisite  costumes. 

Over  the  suggested  vision  of  her  impending  Kundry, 
they  had  both  stood  enthralled — he  at  the  daring  imagina- 
tiveness of  its  delicately  poignant  colours,  its  clusters,  its 
very  horns  of  jewellery  invoking  to  the  brain  some  beast 
of  Apocalypse;  she,  in  delight  at  his  breathless  apprecia- 
tion, and  for  a  long  moment  nearly  tempted. 

But  again,  and  suddenly,  she  had  shaken  her  head.  This 
had  been  the  case  of  her  delicacy;  though  she  had  said, 
and  had  looked  at  him  with  utter  unconcern  as  she  said 
it :  "Never  Kundry.  For  you  can  see  from  this,  as  Kun- 
dry, friend,  I  am  shockingly,  dreadfully,  nearly  naked!" 

Carmen — and  a  bright,  grave  light  had  filled  her  eyes. 

"That  truly  tempts  me.  But  Breval  has  been  painted 
as  Carmen,  as  Carmen  will  probably  never  be  painted 
again !"  Her  casual,  offhand  knowledge  of  the  picture 
— for  this,  too,  was  early  in  their  knowledge  of  each  other 
— had  delighted  him.  "And  also,  Mr.  Rutgers,  Carmen 
would  never  show  me  as  I  a — as  I  desire  to  be." 

And  at  last  she  had  said  one  day,  turning  to  him  abrupt- 
ly with  something  more  pregnant,  more  deep  and  even 
more  mysterious  in  her  manner  than  he  had  ever  before 
discovered  in  it:  "I  have  decided,  if  you  will  humour  me. 
No  costume  at  all.  Do  not  look  so  amazed!  I  mean, 


People  253 

anything  you  may  choose  out  of  what  you  have  seen 
upon  me  here  at  home.  Yet,  Mr.  Rutgers,  in  a  character 
dearer  to  my  heart  than  any  other.  Paint  me,  please,  as 
a  lady." 

And  Arnold  Rutgers's  "Wanda  de  1'Etoile,"  indeed 
the  portrait  of  a  lady,  hangs  now  in  the  Metropolitan, 
quite  near  the  Zuloaga  Breval. 

But  to-day,  as  he  stood  so  gently,  so  wonderingly  in 
the  faded  light  by  her  small  beautiful  desk,  it  was  hang- 
ing in  his  studio,  where  it  bulked  dimly,  subtly  in  his 
daily  life  as  might  a  shrine  to  a  devout  Catholic. 

When  he  had  first  determined  to  know  her  and  had 
set  with  so  stubborn  a  fever  to  the  task  of  it,  he  had  not 
paused  long  enough  to  ask  himself  if  he  was  in  love  with 
her.  When  he  did  take  breath  to  ask  himself  seriously 
that,  he  had  been  as  feverishly  glad  to  own  it. 

Now,  with  the  innermost  beauty  of  Wanda's  demanded 
fine  distinction,  he  was  not  "in"  love  with  her;  he  loved 
her.  As,  standing  so  near  to  her  hidden  little  red  book, 
he  was  imaginatively  phrasing  the  great  fact  to  himself, 
that  fact  of  love,  a  fact  great  enough  to  attain  the  stature 
and  the  miraculous  nature  of  a  truth,  had  come  into  its 
fulsome  golden  being  in  him  with  all  the  gradualness,  yet 
sudden  glory,  of  a  sunrise.  .  .  . 

"But,  Arno,  it  is  perfectly  dark!  It  is  black,  winter 
night !  I  do  not  see  you,  even !  Why  did  you  not  turn 
on  the  light?" 


CHAPTER  XXIX 

LET  THE  DEAD  PAST  BURY  ITS  DEAD 

SHE  was  serving  him,  gracefully,  attentively,  after  her 
gentle  foreign  woman's  fashion — a  fashion  that  had  for- 
bidden him  to  fetch  and  carry,  even  to  trundle  in  for  her 
the  "curate's-assistant"  with  its  surplice  of  lace  and 
silver,  its  weight  of  wine  and  food.  When  he  had  heard 
her  voice  from  the  doorway  he  had  answered  her,  through 
the  room's  darkness,  "Because  I  was  thinking  of  light, 
Wanda.  Of  a  light  greater  than  electricity  or  even  sun. 
And  if  you  were  looking  at  the  mirror  you  would  see  me, 
Wanda.  I  can  see  the  gleam  of  your  eyes  in  it,  even  with 
your  head  turned  away;  and  you  would  see  that  gleam 
reflected  in  mine." 

She  had  laughed  softly. 

"You  are  not  an  American,  Arno,  after  all !  You  say 
impossible,  pretty  things !" 

Then  she  had  felt  for  the  switch  and  flooded  the  room 
with  a  suave  radiance — of  the  tenderly  tinted  shades,  of 
her  roseate  figure,  its  decolletee  frock  of  rich  petal-colour. 

The  gown,  her  neck,  her  hair  were  gleaming  now, 
beyond  the  rose-drenched  candelabra.  He  was  sure  he 
had  never  seen  anyone,  not  Wanda  herself,  more  lovely, 
in  a  lovelier  moment.  He  had  never  known  anyone  who 
could  transform,  with  the  gesture  of  a  wine-glass  or  the 
delicate  passing  of  a  dish,  the  essence  of  a  markedly  in- 
formal supper  to  that  of  a  function.  Thus  her  art 
touched,  seemingly,  everything.  Supper  with  her  was  a 
combination  of  the  intimate  with  the  stately ;  the  familiar 
with  the  decorous ;  the  simple  with  the  elaborate ;  the 
sketched  with  the  pigmented.  And  that,  despite  her  in- 

254 


Let  the  Dead  Past  Bury  Its  Dead      255 

triguing  little  oblique  excuse,  was  why  she  had  dressed 
for  it.  Vanity?  Facets!  .  .  . 

"Oh,  Wanda,"  he  exclaimed  suddenly,  hunting  in  his 
jacket,  "I've  found  that  criticism  that  tickled  me  so! 
Read  it."  And  he  handed  her  a  clipped  bit  of  newspaper. 

"Thank  you,  Arno.  My  curiosity  about  myself  is 
never  used  up !" 

Wanda  studied  it  slowly,  puzzling  carefully  over  some 
of  the  words. 

"Maggie  used  to  swim  and  dandle  flowers  under 
Cosima " 

She  looked  up,  her  face  blank.  "Maggie — swim — Frau 
Wagner's  first  name?  Why,  Arno,  this  means  nothing! 
Is  it  a  crazy  person?" 

"Read  on,"  he  smiled. 

"Maggie  used  to  swim  and  dandle  flowers  under  Cosima; 
one  may  put  it  so  in  order  to  exactly  place  the  dramatic  semi- 
colon in  front  of  her  appearance  here  among  us,  where,  when 
she  swims,  it  is  not  as  a  Rhine  Maiden,  but  as  a  comet  into 
our  ken;  where  she  is  no  longer  dandling  flowers  among  the 
chorus,  but  floating  among  the  stars.  In  other  words,  she 
is  no  longer  Maggie,  but  Wanda  de  1'Etoile,  helping  to  make 
the  music  of  the  spheres." 

Again  Wanda  looked  up.  "But  my  name  was  never 
Maggie !" 

Again  he  smiled.     "Read  on." 

"This  writer  heard  Maggie  when  she  was  a  squawky  flower- 
girl  at  Bayreuth.  If  her  name  was  not  Maggie,  it  was  doubt- 
less the  equivalent  of  it  in  the  land  of  her  birth — just  one 
indistinguishable  name  in  a  list  of  six  or  a  dozen  bracketed 
names  who  swam,  or  threw  flowers,  or  ejaculated  with  spears 
and  bridled  with  tall  white  pinions  for  famous  Briinnhildes. 
Yet  in  that  nameless,  squawky,  sixth  or  dozenth  voice  there 
was  the  mysterious,  unforgettable  something  that  haunts, 
that  one  never  forgets,  that  sings  not:  'Ho-yo-to-ho !'  but  'I 
am  the  new  generation !  I  shall  sing  Briinnhilde  one  day  as 
she  does  not!'  Such  was  Wanda  de  1'Etoile.  What  she  is  now, 
what  she  was  last  night,  the  world  knows." 


256  The  Great  Way 

Lost  in  thought,  Wanda  creased  the  bit  of  printing 
between  her  fingers. 

"Arno,"  she  said  presently,  "I  am  not  now  surprised 
you  were  'tickled*  at  this,  being  my  friend.  For  it  is 
kind.  It  appreciates.  Here  in  America,  despite  I  would 
not  pay  bribes  because  I  would  think  it  wicked,  as  did 
that  too  stout  Briinnhilde  who  thence  had  to  go  home, 
still  there  has  been  so  much  kindness !  Oh,  so  much !  Yet 
I  confess  that  all  of  this  I  do  not  understand.  I  do  not 
see  what  fun  he  had  to  call  me  Maggie !" 

"What  was  your  name,  Wanda?" 

"At  Bayreuth?  I  do  not  remember  what  I  there  called 
myself,  scarcely  any  more  than  this  writer  does.  Several 
dreadful  German  things,  out  of  manners  to  the  country. 
I  was  there  one  year,  for  training.  And  it  did  what 
you  call  "worlds"  for  me.  Yet  I  think  God  Himself  was 
surprised  at  me  for  wanting  to  sing  the  German  tongue. 
My  wars  with  it  have  paid  me  two  things.  One,  that 
when  I  have  sung  it,  which  will  now  be  soon,  I  will  be 
called  the  greatest  Kundry.  I  have  that  conviction.  The 
other,  that  they  have  prepared  me  perhaps — perhaps — 
one  day  to  sing — Isolde!  Who  sent  me  to  Bayreuth 
really  was — Isolde!" 

With  the  rich  word,  softly,  richly  spoken,  there  was 
a  far-off  look  in  her  eyes,  as  if  it  named  a  far-off  time. 

"Yes,"  said  Arnold  Rutgers,  a  far-off  look  in  his  eyes 
too,  and  a  queer  quiver  in  his  voice,  "how  you  could  sing 
Isolde!" 

"Perhaps,  Arno,  perhaps.  What  a  test!  For  I  am 
more  ambitious  than  even  you  dream  of,  dear  friend  as 
you  are.  And  for  reasons  that  you  do  not  know — dear 
friend  as  you  are.  Arno,  I  utterly  wish  to  be  great — 
truly,  greatly  great !" 

"But  you  are  already  great !  Truly  great !  The  slow, 
unwilling  world  says  so !" 

"I  am  not  Melba." 

"But  you  are  Wanda  de  1'Etoile." 

"I  have  not  Melba's  voice,  Arno." 


Let  the  Dead  Past  Bury  Its  Dead      257 

"And  Melba  has  not  your  soul." 

"You  must  not  say  that,  Arno.  Melba  kissed  me  once, 
and  I  think  it  was  the  greatest  moment  of  my  life.  .  .  . 
No,  not  of  my  life,  but  of  my  career.  I  had  sung  Boheme, 
and  when  I  saw  her  sitting  in  the  house,  enough  by  itself 
to  frighten  any  human  soul  to  death,  it — it  reminded 
me  of  something  ...  of  one  night  in  Paris.  .  .  .  Arno, 
I  did  not  know  how  or  what  I  sang  the  rest,  of  the  act. 
And  when  she  asked  to  see  me  in  my  dressing-room, 
and  told  me  how  I  had  sung,  and  I  looked  in  her  lovely 
face  and  knew  she  did  not  pity  me,  but  was  telling  me 
the  truth,  I  cried  and  cried  enough  to  spoil  my  voice 
for  a  week,  except  that  joy  never  spoils  anything.  One 
thing  she  said  was,  'People  have  said  a  singer  needs 
three  things,  Voice,  Voice,  Voice.'  That  itself  was  another 
strange  memory  for  me,  for  that  had  been  said  to  me 
once,  when  the  whole  great  way  of  my  life — my  Gran 
Via — was  prophesied  for  me.  And  then  she  said,  'I  have 
those  three  things.  If  I  had  your  soul,  I  would  be  the 
greatest  singer  in  the  world.'  .  .  .  Arno,  could  there  be 
a  greater  soul  than  the  soul  that,  even  out  of  an  ecstatic, 
queenly  moment,  to  someone  who  was  seeking  and  strug- 
gling, would  say  that?"  . 

They  were  silent  for  a  time;  then  Arnold  said  gently: 

"And  the  soul  that  is  greater  than  any  I  have  known, 
has  pointed  a  moral  and  adorned  a  pretty  tale,  to  make 
me  forget  to  ask  again  what  its  earthly  name  was  when 
it  was  a  heavenly  child.  Is  not  that  so?"  Wanda's  "is 
nots"  had  infected  the  American. 

"Why  should  you  wish  to  know  what  my  name  was, 
Arno?" 

"Because  I  long  to  know  everything  about  you." 

"Ah!"  Wanda  shook  her  head  with  a  strange,  sad 
smile.  "No,  very  dear  friend.  You  would  be  sorry  if 
you  did  know.  You — you  idealize  me." 

"I  do  not  idealize  you,  I  idolize  you." 

"Arno,  Arno,  you  must  not  say  that!"  She  cried  it, 
almost,  pain  vibrant  in  her  exquisite  voice.  "Listen  to 


258  The  Great  Way 

me:  you  and  Daisy  are  my  nearest  and  dearest  of  my  life 
just  now — you,  more  even  than  Daisy,  because  it  is  won- 
derful to  me  to  have  a  friend  in  a  good  man,  and  you  are 
the  only  one  of  that  kind  that  I  have  had  in  all  my  life — 
except,  and  different  again,  my  Maestro.  It  is  possible 
here  in  the  States.  In  my  native  country  it  would  be,  I 
think,  not  possible — again  except,  for  instance,  my  be- 
loved Maestro.  Shall  you  change  all  that,  and  make  my 
life  more  empty,  by  offering  me  something  I  would  have 
no  right  to  take?*' 

"Why  no  right,  Wanda?  You  tell  me  so  over  and 
over,  but  without  saying  why,  except  vaguely,  sadly  that 
there  is  a  good  reason.  That  7  have  no  right  even  to 
beg  you,  would  seem  reasonable  enough,  for  I  have  nothing 
to  offer  that  is  great  enough  for  you,  except  my  love. 
But  you  say  that  is  not  it.  Tell  me,  Wanda :  great  as 
you  are,  beyond  other  people,  something  higher  than 
most  things  of  the  world,  yet  with  a  great  love  offered 
you,  would  you  not  think  of  marriage?  Would  you  never 
think  of  it  at  all?" 

"Amo,"  she  said,  her  eyes  grave  and  dreamy,  her 
voice  very  slow,  "there  was  a  time  when  I  did  not — could 
not — think  of  marriage  for  myself — at  all.  Even  far 
ahead.  Could  not  afford  it  in  any  way  soever.  But  here, 
things  are  such  a  different  spirit  from  the  spirit  at  home 
that  I  have  sometimes  thought — I  am  trying  to  say,  I 
have  changed  a  little — a  little — in  what  is  named  here  the 
'point  of  view.'  I  have  thought  that  perhaps  I  did  have 
that  right.  I  mean,  that  I  might  have  it  in  certain  cir- 
cumstances. But  I  am  not  yet  sure  in  that  point  of 
view.  It  is  young  with  me,  like  a  baby  that  might  grow 
up  to  astonish  one  in  some  way.  For  I  have  had  it  only 
since  I  have  came  to  America." 

Arnold  smiled,  his  troubled  gravity  broken  for  a 
moment. 

"Not  'came,'  dear,  'come.' ' 

"'Come'?     Thank  you,  Arno.     Since  I  come  here." 

"Not  'since  I  come,'  Wanda  dear,  but  'have  come.' " 


Let  the  Dead  Past  Bury  Its  Dead      259 

"But  that  is  what  I  said  to  begin,  Arno !  Are  you 
never  satisfied?  I  think  you  are  not  so  clever  as  you 
pretend!  'Did  come'  is  in  the  book,  and  when  one  day 
I  have  said  'Since  I  did  come  to  America'  you  chose  to 
know  better  than  the  book  and  told  me  'came,'  and  to- 
night I  have  begun  with  'came,'  and  you  tell  me  'come'! 
What  am  I  to  believe?" 

"Never  mind,  dear,"  laughed  Arnold. 

"But  I  mind  very  much!"  cried  Wanda  indignantly. 
"You  know  I  am  proud  of  my  cleverness  at  languages, 
yet  you  must  confuse  me  for  ever !" 

"Let's  return  to  your  'point  of  view,'  dear.  That's 
more  important  than  your  English." 

"  'Let's' !  'That's' !  I  am  sure  those  are  poor  enough 
English!  Well,  since  I  have  came  here,  I  have  seen  this 
different  spirit  about  what  is  right  and  what  is  wrong. 
You  are  the  greatest  people  in  the  world  in  some  ways — 
the  most  open  and  charitable,  I  think.  But,  Arno,  to 
demand  all  the  charity  of  a  big  nation  from  one  individual 
of  it,  even  the  sweetest  and  kindest,  would  be  too  much. 
Comprends  tu  moi  ?" 

"Dear,"  said  Arnold  Rutgers,  leaning  across  the  glow- 
ing table  and  placing  his  darker  hand  on  the  fingers  that 
lay  white  upon  the  white  cloth,  shining  in  its  rosy  light, 
" — dear — and  surely  you  must  let  me  call  you  so  when 
you  have  used  the  foreign  'thou'  to  me — you  should 
never,  in  speaking  to  me  of  ourselves,  use  the  word  charity. 
You  like  to  have  lessons  in  English;  here  is  a  lesson 
deeper  and  greater  than  all  of  grammar:  'Charity'  is 
the  cruellest,  most  terrible  word  in  the  English  tongue!" 

"It — it  was  not  cruel  to  me,  Arno,"  she  said,  "the  first 
time  my  mind  came  upon  it  with  real  thought  of  its 
meaning.  Charities — 'Mercedes' — was  the  name  of  a 
beautiful  old  woman — I  think  she  was  old,  old  as  words, 
I  know  she  was  beautiful,  beautiful  as  words — who  saved 
my  life  one  pitiable  night — pitiable?  Pitiful  too! — who 
prophesied  for  me  my  Great  Way.  She  is  the  one  I  have 
spoken  to  you  when  we  talked  of  Melba  just  now.  Cruel? 


260  The  Great  Way 

Mercedes  was  not  cruel,  Arno ;  she  only  was  truthful  with 
me,  fully  truthful,  as  I  am  trying  with  you  to  be!" 

"The  virtues  of  charity,"  he  answered  quietly,  "are 
that  it  'suffereth  long  and  is  kind.'  I  would  suffer  long 
for  you,  Wanda.  Till  doomsday,  I  would  be  kind  to  you. 
Yet  'charity'?  Who  am  I  that  I  should  be  charitable 
to  you?  When  I've  told  you  I  loved  you  and  wanted  to 
marry  you,  have  you  demanded  what  my  life  has  been? 
If  it  has  even  occurred  to  you  to  wonder,  has  it  occurred 
to  you  to  ask?  Never.  .  .  .  Dear,  have  /  ever  asked 
you?" 

Her  eyes  were  dim  and  did  not  look  at  him  as  she 
whispered:  "Yes,  even  to-night,  Arno." 

"Wanda!  Wanda!  Could  you  have  understood  it  so? 
You  didn't !  That  was  uncharitable,  from  you  to  me ! 
I  said  I  longed  to  know  your  name,  to  know  the  little, 
early  things,  to  picture  you  as  a  child !" 

"I  know !  I  know !  That  was  unkind  from  me  to  you ! 
It  was  a  little  bit  of  wicked  bitterness.  Forgive  me! 
Dear,  dear  friend,  I  see  that  we  must  at  last  talk  seriously 
of  this  marriage  matter.  I  have  hoped  we  need  not.  .  .  . 
Arno,  I  believe  with  all  my  heart  that  no  matter  what 
I  told  you  of  myself,  you  would  say,  *I  do  not  care, 
Wanda.'  You  would  still  say,  'You  are  so  great  and 
famous,  and  my  love  for  you  is  so  great  and  complete, 
that  for  us  there  is  not  this  strange  difference  that  God 
has  made  to  be,  or  perhaps  only  allowed  to  be,  between 
what  a  man  may  do  and  what  a  woman  may  do.'  I  be- 
lieve that  you  would  say  that.  But  even  if  I  could  say 
it  with  you,  Arno,  praying  that  my  past — my  'past' 
the  way  it  is  called  in  italics  and  in  quotation  marks — 
through  God's  mercy  might  never,  never  rise  to  strike 
you  on  the  face,  still  there  would  be  two  reasons.  Two 
great  reasons.  And  one  of  them  is,  here  am  I  a  singer, 
an  artista,  a  famous  one  to  be  sure,  a  cantatriz,  to  climb 
further  up  in  my  native  tongue,  but  still  an  artista,  sprung 
up  from  the  people — of  an  old  line  in  my  dear  coun- 
try, yet  a  line  sunk  down  in  the  people.  And  you 


Let  the  Dead  Past  Bury  Its  Dead      261 

are  a  gentleman.  You  are  an  aristocrat.  Your  name 
would  measure  with  the  names  of  nobles  in  my  country, 
mine  measures  with  your  aristocracy  here  only  as  a  printed 
one  at  the  Opera.  And  of  your  family,  you,  Arno,  are 
what  you  call  the  'scion.'  " 

"Wanda,"  he  said  earnestly,  trembling  with  a  hope 
unfelt  before,  "granting  the  right  or  wrong  of  all  that, 
don't  you  know  what  my  family  consists  of?  My  younger 
sister.  No  one  else,  absolutely  no  one!" 

"What  a  boy  you  are,  dear  friend!  You  are  at  times 
such  as  this,  so  like  a  boy  that  it  makes  me  ashamed  to 
keep  you  even  for  my  close,  friendly  friend !" 

"I  may  be,  Wanda,  to  you,  though  I'm  older  than 
you." 

"With  a  sister  twenty,  you  have  told  me.  Arno,  we 
must  not  forget  that  sister !  How  little  you  know  women ! 
That  is  why  I  have  called  you  'what  a  boy.'  She  would 
know  in  a  day  what  you  would  not  discover  in  a  life- 
time! Arno,  I  believe  in  God's  name  that  to-day,  to- 
night— I  am  as  truly,  purely  worthy  to  marry — even  you 
— in  most  ways,  as — as  a  woman — with — without " 

"I  understand,  dear." 

"Yet,  Arno,  that  old  life  is  history,  if  it  is  not  present 
truth.  And  even  if  that  sister  of  yours  could  not  read 
as  most  women  can  read,  must  you  not  think  of  her?" 

"My  dear,"  he  said,  with  a  quietness  deeply  serious 
but  untroubled,  "my  sister  has  not  thought  of  me  in  that 
sense.  American  brothers  and  sisters  are  very  inde- 
pendent, Wanda.  They  are  willing  to  love  each  other 
without  demands  and  dominations.  Let  me  tell  you  some- 
thing!" And  his  eyes  shone  with  his  one  little  victory 
for  which  he  had  used  one  of  her  little  phrases.  "You 
know  my  sister  is  in  Paris,  with  friends.  She  at  twenty 
has  become  engaged  to  someone  I  never  saw,  never  be- 
fore heard  of.  Wanda,  I've  written  her  and  written  her 
about  you.  She  would  love  you — and  not  for  my  sake 
either,  believe  me,  but  for  your  own,  her  own.  If  I 
don't  know  women,  Wanda,  I  know  one  woman — my 


262  The  Great  Way 

sister.  She  has  written  me,  'She  must  be  lovely,  very 
lovely.'  And  another  time,  'I  believe  you're  at  last  in 
love,  Arnold.  And  it's  high  time.'  While  of  this  man, 
Wanda,  to  whom  she's  entrusted  her  life,  her  name — 
our  name,  as  your  thoughts  would  deal  with  it — she  writes 
only  that  she  loves  him — pages  pouring  out  that,  with 
'handsome'  in  every  other  line.  And  at  the  end  what  do  I 
know  of  him?  That  he's  handsome.  And  I  couldn't  go 
on  the  witness-stand,  my  dear,  as  to  that.  And  am  I 
shocked  or  angry?  No.  Because  I  trust  her.  Would 
she  question  my  right,  my  judgment?  No.  Because  she 

trusts  me.  Wanda '  and  his  hand  tightened  upon 

hers  and  his  voice  quivered  into  low  intensity — "Wanda, 
will  you  marry  me?" 

She  drew  her  hand  slowly  away  and  rested  her  chin 
in  the  hollow  of  it,  lowering  her  eyes  and  turning  partly 
from  him. 

"The  chances  are  in  favour  of  this  man.  .  .  .  Chances 
are  always  in  favour  of  men !  .  .  .  Probably  your  little 
sister,  whom  you  trust,  will  give  you  no  reason  to  regret 
that  trust.  But  that  very  same  matter  of  trust — the  very 
point  and  nature  of  it,  Arno !  How  of  her  trust  in  you? 
Shall  you,  deliberately,  bring  into  her  life,  as  her  lawful 
sister,  a — Oh,  I  do  know  some  English! — a — demi-rep?" 

The  word  leapt  out  as  if  to  strike  him. 

"Wanda !"  he  cried. 

"Did  it  hurt  you?"  She  sprang  up  with  hot,  pas- 
sionate tears.  "I  said  it  to  hurt  you !  I  wanted  to  know 
if  you  still  would  beg  me  to  marry  you!" 

He  too  had  sprung  up. 

"I  do  beg  you  to  marry  me !    I  love  you !" 

"It  was  sweet  to  have  a  good  man  ask  and  ask  me! 
I  said  it  to  have  all  the  sweetness  of  that — all — before 
I  said  utterly  'No' !" 

"Why  do  you  say  no?  Why?"  He  tried  to  take  her 
in  his  arms  but  she  struggled  away. 

"Did  I  not  say  there  were  two  reasons?  You  have 
struck  down  only  one!  Shall  I  tell  you  that  other?  How 


Let  the  Dead  Past  Bury  Its  Dead      263 

cruel  I  was — how  charitable,  with  your  definition! — not 
to  tell  it  first !" 

"What  is  it?    Tell  me,  Wanda !    Tell  me!" 

She  turned  toward  him  with  her  cheeks  yet  wet,  but 
her  eyes  passionless,  bright  merely  with  the  dry  light  of 
tense  fervour. 

"Dearest,  closest  friend,  it  is  that  I — that  I  do  not 
love  you.  Oh,  I  love  you  indeed — indeed!  But  not  so, 
not  so!  It  is  not  that  way!  It  is  not  the  great  way! 
It  is  not  La  Gran  Via !" 

With  hands  tight  clenched,  she  again  turned  away  her 
eyes. 

He  came  up  behind  her  and  placed  his  gentle  hands 
upon  her  shoulders. 

"I  have  known  you  did  not  love  me — that  way.  I 
do  not  ask  you  to.  I  ask  you  to  marry  me.  It  might 
be — afterward.  It  might  grow!  I  ask  only  the  chance. 
of  its  growing.  Wanda,  be  my  wife !  Be  the  bearer  of 
my  name  that  you  put  so  high!  Make  me  proud  that 
you  would  take  that  gift !  Bear  not  only  that — be  the 
mother  of  my  children  !" 

"I  do  not  deserve  them!"  she  whispered,  striving  to 
keep  erect  the  head  that  he  strove  to  draw  against  his 
heart. 

"Think  of  it,  Wanda!  Think  a  little  while,  just  a 
little  while,  before  you  say  'utterly  no5!  Dear,  I  can 
tell  what  your  lovely  mind  keeps  going  back  to — more, 
so  much  more  than  it  should! — that  word,  and  all  you 
meant  by  it.  Dear,  again  your  own  pretty  expression, 
'let  me  tell  you  something':  You  are  always  crying  out 
for  people,  Wanda.  'The'  people.  Dear,  there  is  a  line 
of  verse  that  a  people's  poet  wrote  for  the  people,  and 
that  stands  out  beyond  the  power  of  the  rest  of  all 
his  simple  verses  for  all  people,  high  and  low,  to  read. 
Dearest,  that  message  is:  'Let  the  dead  past  bury  its 
dead.'  Will  you  think  of  that  for  a  little,  Wanda?  For 
just  a  little,  before  saying  'Utterly  no'?" 

She   drew   away   from   him,   and   turned,   and  let   her 


264  The  Great  Way 

hands  slip  down  his  sleeves  till  they  caught  his  fingers. 

"How  wonderful  you  are!"  she  said,  looking  in  his 
eyes.  "Yes,  I  will  promise  you — so  much !" 

"Then  I  will  leave  you,  dear.  I  know  that  with  you 
a  promise  is  a  sacred  thing.  It  needs  no  tying.  Oh — • 
one  moment !" 

Again  his  hand  went  into  his  jacket  pocket  where  the 
newspaper  clipping  had  been. 

"Wanda,  will  you  let  me  give  you  this?  I  have  never 
given  you  anything  but  flowers.  Something,  not  words, 
but  something  from  you,  has  said  that  flowers  must  be 
the  only  thing  from  me.  But  you  have  given  me  so 
much,  Wanda!  You  will  accept  this?" 

And  a  soft  cry  at  the  beauty  came  from  her  as  there 
sped,  from  his  finger-tips  to  her  instinctively  uplifted 
ones,  and  hung  between  them  glittering,  a  string  of  beads 
— a  rosary  of  carven  gold  and  crystal. 

Momentarily,  she  stood  spellbound,  with  aesthetic  de- 
light and  with  memory — memories  of  the  gypsy  again, 
when  between  her  and  the  woman  named  Charities  had 
hung  thus  pendant  and  glittering — in  firelight — a  string 
of  beads ;  of  Isabel,  when  between  her  and  the  girl  named 
Sacrament  thus  had  hung  drooping  and  shining — in  sun- 
light— a  string  of  beads.  But  for  the  old  glow  and 
wonder  of  old  wondrous  Egypt  then  and  there,  were  a 
white  pure  glitter  and  new  miracle  from  these  rose-cut 
pebbles  of  Brazil  silently  tinkling  with  lights  like  dew- 
drops,  falling  in  their  sunny  gold  chain  to  her  pink  fingers 
here  and  now. 

Their  thought,  their  symbol,  their  colour  of  a  minia- 
ture cascade,  seemed  to  span  a  gulf.  And  her  first  words 
of  hesitation,  softly  spoken,  were  amusing,  and  were  sad. 

"For  me — a  rosary! — You  know  I  am  not  a  strict 
goer  to  churches,  Arno !" 

"I  have  neither  known  nor  cared,"  he  said,  " — nor 
thought !  They  have  beauty — your  kind  of  beauty.  They're 
from  a  famous  collection.  They're  from  your  country. 
They're  very  old,  like  Spain.  They  were  in  the  Guzman 


Let  the  Dead  Past  Bury  Its  Dead      265 

family.  Perhaps  Eugenie  knew  them.  But  first  and  last, 
they  look  like  you.  They  are  like  you.  They  are  what 
you  are  to  me.  You  will  have  them?" 

Mist  mingled  with  the  light  in  her  eyes.  Yet  hard  as 
he  was,  harder  than  the  stones,  to  resist,  still  resistance 
came  from  her. 

"Would  it  not  be — Arno " 

"A  chain — chaining  your  promise  to  you?  Did  I  not 
say  I  knew  that  needed  no  binding?  Can  you  think  that, 
when  I  forgot  this  thing  in  my  pocket,  and  remembered, 
in  that  same  pocket,  the  newspaper  clipping?" 

"Then •" 

And  she  let  it  come  from  his  fingers  to  her  own  .  .  . 
indeed  fair,  delicate  as  drops  of  dew  on  a  sunbeam,  in- 
deed, as  just  such  a  dream  translated  into  matter  as  it 
massed  smally,  creamily  on  to  the  shell-pink  palm  of  her 
hand. 

And  having  allowed  this,  her  words  were  replete  with 
acceptation. 

"How  completely  lovely !  I  do  not  know  very  much 
about  rosaries,  Arno.  Indeed  not  as  much  as  the  very 
worst  Spaniard  should.  But  whatever  my  faiths  and 
feelings,  yet  are  rosaries  to  me  one  of  the  most  beautiful 
thoughts  ever  in  the  world — chaplets,  chaplets  of  jewels, 
or,  like  these,  even  gems,  clung  to  by  armies  of  aestheti- 
cized  thoughts. — How  careful  I  was  to  pronounce  that 
word  slowly,  and  how  prettily  I  suceeded  upon  it,  too! 
— But  this  much  that  is  churchly,  I  do  remember,  that 
mysteries  attach  on  them,  on  rosaries,  Arno — churchly 
or  not,  all  of  our  mysteries  that  our  lives  can  have:  the 
Joyful,  the  Dolorous,  the  Glorious.  What  more,  in  the 
whole  Great  Way?  The  Joyful,  the  Sorrowful,  the 
Glorious ;  but  I  chose  your  word  dolorous  because  so  near 
to  our  own  dear  'Dolores,'  so  soft,  so  sweet,  so  sad,  and 
that  our  people  will  name  people,  little,  helpless  girl- 
people,  so  thoughtfully,  and  thoughtlessly,  and  terribly! 
Yes,  the  Joyful,  the  Sorrowful,  the  Glorious,  our  mys- 
teries; I  ask  you,  Arno,  what  further  ones,  in  the  whole 


266  The  Great  Way 

Great  Way?  -And  my  own  odd,  personal  thoughts  put 
miracles  to  them,  too.  I  do  not  remember  whether  mys- 
teries and  miracles  concern  each  other  in  churches.  But 
the  words  seem  kindred.  And  whether  from  the  word 
— for  I  am  peculiarly  fond  of  words — whether  just  from 
the  word  rosary,  or  from  something  I  have  read,  always 
I  concern  with  them  a  Miracle  of  Roses.  It  is  something 
about  Saint  Isabel — for  again  a  word,  a  name,  has  hap- 
pened to  make  me  read  more  about  that  saint  than  any 
other!  This  rosary  at  least,  Arno,  if  no  other  rosary, 
is  truly  a  little  miracle  of  roses !" 

She  was  still  holding  it  caressingly,  lifting  it  with  her 
fingers,  letting  it  fall  and  form  again  with  soft  heaviness 
on  her  palm ;  and  he  made  no  answer  for  he  felt  a  further 
thought  coming  from  her  and  presently  her  pensive 
steady  eyes  drew  his  to  one  of  the  room's  suavely  tinted 
pictures. 

"How  strange  a  thing,  association  of  ideas !  Murillo. 
...  I  said  to-night,  my  trials  with  the  German  tongue 
had  paid  me  two  things,  and  that  may  have  sounded 
that  I  gained  no  more  in  Germany.  But  no.  I  discovered 
suddenly  that  picture  there,  Arno — the  real,  the  original, 
I  mean.  If  I  have  memories  of  any  painting,  I  have, 
and  I  had  had,  of  that,  my  beloved  Saint  Francis  of 
Padua.  Memories  from  my  earliest  home,  which  was 
Cadiz.  Memories,  through  one  terrible  reminding  night 
of  it,  from  Sevilla.  Memories  from  a  more  than  terrible 
moment  of  a  black  hour  in  a  Moorish  church  in  the  foot- 
hills of  the  Pireneos.  I  did  not  recognize  the  message 
then,  but  Murillo  in  all  those  different  moments,  joyful, 
dolorous,  as  in  after  moments  glorious,  was  speaking  to 
me,  trymg  to  speak  to  me,  through  the  vast  distances 
of  his  vaporoso,  of  Art.  Well,  it  was  in  Berlin  that  I 
suddenly  found  out  where  was  that  great  loved  Murillo 
of  my  Spain's.  When  I  could  have  known  for  years  for 
the  asking,  I  suppose,  or  for  the  looking  in  a  book.  Yet 
that  instant's  transport  back  along  the  Gran  Via  as 
through  the  vaporoso  to  my  home,  taught  me  more  I 


Let  the  Dead  Past  Bury  Its  Dead      267 

think  than  a  book,  or  great  many  of  questions.  Of  such 
things  is  one's  art  so  much  made  up — and  to  you,  can  I 
talk  in  this  way  so  much  more  with  understanding  paid 
me  back,  than  with  anyone  else,  Arno !  Association  of 
ideas !  There  is  a  danger  in  it !  Here  in  Nueva  York, 
I  went  to  see  the  wonderful  Rodins — in  a  mood  of  home- 
sickness for  Paris  one  day,  and  taking  Daisy,  a  fatal 
measure,  but  yet  learning  the  'Main  de  Dieu,'  for  all  my 
love  of  it  before,  as  never  before,  because  'at  home'  in 
the  Luxembourg  it  is  bronze,  here  in  your  wealth  it  is 
a  spiritual  wealth  of  marble.  And  from  that  wondrous 
marble  too,  I  learned  to  love  the  'Cupid  and  Psyche,' 
which  I  had  never  loved  because  other  Cupid-and-Psyches 
were  to  me  sentimental,  were  love  without  depth,  shallow, 
like  the  expression  'falling  in  love,'  'being  in  love.'  There 
was  wrong  association  of  ideas,  you  see — it  had  made  me 
mistake  and  neglect  this  pure  beautiful  Rodin  one — from 
which  the  pure  marble  for  a  moment  chanced  in  charity 
to  me  to  wipe  the  interfering,  sentimental  wings  away — 
away  from  my  brain,  I  mean,  not  from  the  statue,  thank 
God!  But  shall  I  teach  you  Art,  Arno?  Only,  it  is  that 
of  such  things,  such  moments,  I  suppose,  that  we — our 
finally  painted  souls — are  made;  of  things  like  that 
Murillo,  and  this  little  Miracle  of  Roses  !  And  the  strange 
little  thought  I  started  for,  and  have  but  just  arrived  to, 
is,  ah,  association  of  ideas  indeed!  Arno,  you  have 
asked  gently,  sweetly  about  my  very  early  life.  Well, 
the  little  street  that  I  was  born  in,  in  little  Cadiz,  was — 
the  Rosario !" 

And  lifting  the  dewy  and  golden  miracle  she  dropped 
it  around  her  throat,  where  it  lay  glinting  on  the  white 
neck  above  the  roseate  frock. 

Very  gently,  he  made  no  answer  to  all  that  she  had 
said,  except: 

"You  sing  to-morrow  night,  Wanda?" 

"Yes." 

"Traviata!" 

"Yes." 


268  The  Great  Way 

He  smiled,  a  curious  quality  of  tenderness  in  his  smile. 
"You  will  not  let  that  disturb  you?  Promise  me!" 

She  hesitated.    "The " 

"The  'Camille'  notion — that  distant  sister  in  the  story. 
You  see,  dear,  I  understand  your  over-impressionable 
mind  so  well!  You  will  not  let  that  influence  you?" 

"N-no." 

"I  will  be  there.  The  whole  of  New  York  hasn't  a 
camellia.  Gardenias?" 

"Gardenias !"  She  had  almost  started.  And  again 
in  her  eyes  a  little  shadow  struggled  with  the  light.  "I 
— I  love  them  even  more.  Something  like  them,  we  call 
at  home  jacintas." 

"Jacintas,  then.     Good  night,  dear." 

"Good  night— Arno." 

She  stood  for  a  long  time  gazing  out  into  the  dark- 
ness ;  first  seeing  him  walk  away,  then  wondering  when 
the  night's  quiet  would  be  broken  by  the  hoot  of  a  motor 
fetching  Daisy,  or  the  hoot  of  Elise  learning  the  news  of 
her  hat. 

"She  has  stayed  late,  after  all.  She  will  be  'in  love' 
with  Dmitri,  when  she  comes  in.  Dio,  Dio,  how  many 
people  in  the  world  know  what  is  love?" 

She  began  to  walk  and  walk,  to  pace  through  and 
through  the  lustrous  room,  her  hands  at  her  temples — 
occasionally  with  a  scarcely  conscious  gesture  lifting  the 
rosary  and  holding  a  little  measure  of  the  dewy  beads 
across  her  forehead,  as  if  their  coolness  helped  concentra- 
tion of  thought.  At  last  she  paused  beside  the  little 
Sheraton  desk,  and  stood  there,  her  face  raised,  her  fingers 
feverishly  hesitating  on  the  key. 


CHAPTER  XXX 

THE    LITTLE   RED    BOOK   AGAIN 

MY  own,  be  close,  be  near  to  me  to-night !    I  am  in  great 
need !     Suddenly,  I  am  in  great  need !    Be  with  me ! 

I  need  my  faith  in  my  love  for  you.  I  need  it  as  I 
have  never  needed  it  until  now!  I  need  my  faith  in 
myself !  I  feel  the  need  to  write  down  in  words  my  love 
for  you,  that  I  may  see  it  before  me  with  my  own  eyes ! 
Yes,  I,  /  have  such  a  need — I,  whose  pride  in  my  love 
and  my  fidelity  to  my  love  was  absolute.  My  own,  I 
cannot  tell  you  why — not  now.  My  brain  is  too  hot  and 
sick  at  myself.  My  need  is  to  tell  you  and  tell  you,  again 
and  again,  that  my  love  remains — unalterable,  unequalled ! 
.  .  .  Yes,  unalterable!  ...  I  turn  to  the  great  beloved 
exquisite  fact  of  it,  as  a  doubtful  ship  to  a  rocket,  or  the 
North  star.  O  my  Caballero  of  the  Moon,  guide  me ! 

O  my  Jose,  Jose  Luis,  I  must  try  to-night  more  than 
ever  before  in  my  little  book  to  tell  you  what  you  are  to 
me,  what  my  love  is  to  me,  what  the  miraculous  possibility 
of  your  love  means  to  me! 

My  own,  my  Jose,  since  the  old  too-short  days  I  have 
learned  much  of  many  things,  and  among  it  all,  I  have 
learned  much  of  words — some  of  the  much  that  in  those 
days  I  so  thirsted  to  know.  And  do  you  know  what  you 
were  to  me  so  long  ago — what  my  sudden  love  was  to  me? 

Oh,  my  own,  my  own,  to-night,  with  something  of 
that  desired  much  of  words,  and  in  our  sweet,  dear  Span- 
ish, one  thing  that  is  together  yours  and  mine,  dear, 
and  with  all  of  my  little  studies  and  self-decorations  taken 
away  from  me,  I  will  tell  you  what  you  were,  and  what 
it  was. 

269 


270  The  Great  Way 

You  and  that  love  were  Epiphany.  "Epiphany,"  so 
mysterious,  so  mystical  and  beautiful,  has  a  simple  mean- 
ing, Jose  Luis.  It  means  simply  "manifestation,"  simply 
"appearance."  My  sudden  vision  of  love  was  to  me  an 
Epiphany  on  the  road,  the  Great  Road.  And  as  it  is  so 
hard,  so  very  hard,  to  separate  the  feeling  from  what  it 
feels  for,  to  me  you  were  the  Epiphany,  the  bright  light. 

And  later,  when  the  Great  Road  had  led  me  on  into 
the  wilderness,  and  I  travelled  blindly  there,  in  its  con- 
fusion and  its  seeming  endlessness,  alone  and  with  no 
eyes  to  direct  me,  another  thing  of  beautiful  religious 
symbol  happened :  a  great  voice  came  crying  in  the  wilder- 
ness, the  voice  of  God,  and  it  proved  (oh,  thanks  to  God!) 
to  be  my  own  great  voice,  and  made  straight  my  way! 
Yet  had  I  been  asleep  in  the  wilderness,  could  I  have 
heard  that  voice?  No.  And  all  the  time  I  had  been  kept 
awake,  my  darling,  by  the  bright  light,  by  the  bright 
light  of  Epiphany,  of  you,  shining  all  that  while  for  me 
in  the  desolation ! 

And  where  am  I  now?  O,  Dio,  Dio,  where  am  I  now? 
Surely  I  am  no  longer  in  the  wilderness !  Then  where 
am  I?  Am  I  in  the  valley  of  death,  the  valley  of  the 
shadow  of  death?  Does  one  more  such  symbol  confront 
me,  and  am  I  in  some  bad  valley? 

Ah,  my  own,  my  own !  Let  my  vision  of  you  be  closely, 
securely  with  me  now!  I  am  told,  dear,  that  with  some 
who  love,  the  faces  of  the  dearest-absent  are  difficult  to 
conjure.  That  sorrow,  I  have  never  had.  I  can  always 
clearly,  dearly  see  you,  my  Jose  Luis.  And  something 
tells  me  that  my  vision  of  you  this  moment  is  as  you  are 
this  moment — that  you  have  not  changed.  I  think  that 
the  sand-grains  of  the  uncounted  hours  have  fallen  lightly 
on  you.  I  think  that  they  are  written  on  your  face,  but 
in  very  pretty,  educated  writing.  .  .  . 

O  my  own,  where  am  I?  To  where,  to  what,  do  I  go? 
Am  I  indeed  in  the  Valley  of  the  Shadow  now,  am  I 
entering  some  grave  and  terrible  place  in  the  Gran  Via 
such  as  the  enormous  shadowy  fissure  cleft  by  God  in  the 


The  Little  Red  Book  Again          271 

Sacred  Mountain,  up,  up,  beyond  the  convent,  the  famous 
and  awful  Valle  Malo?  .  .  .  Am  I  there?  .  .  . 

O  my  own  Epiphany,  shine  for  me  still  in  my  Gran 
Via,  as  you  did  then  on  the  road,  as  you  did  in  the  wilder- 
ness when  I  was  wandering  through  it — come  to  me  still 
closely  in  my  dreams,  shine  brightly  for  me — if  this  is 
indeed  my  Bad  Valley,  and  not  something  lesser,  shine 
brightly  for  me  through  my  Valle  Malo ! 


CHAPTER  XXXI 

THE    WAKM    SHADOW 

SEVERAL  matters  were  happily  out  of  place — happily, 
because  they  were  not  homeless,  nor  even  away  from  home. 
Merely  they  had  moved  to  new  tenements. 

One  of  these  was  Madame  de  PEtoile's  little  red  books. 
They  had  left  the  "living-room"  and  lived  now  in  what 
their  owner  said  should  be  called,  if  the  English  tongue 
had  logic,  the  dying-room — her  bed-chamber.  This  had 
removed  them  from  the  meandering  and  audible  neigh- 
bourhood of  the  Princess  Daisy,  who  never  ventured  upon 
Madame  de  1'Etoile's  privacy  here — unless  to  waken  her 
in  the  dead  of  night  to  some  new  brand  of  foolishness 
about  Dmitri,  or  in  the  morning,  hours  before  breakfast, 
to  ask  if  she  had  any  embroidery  silk  number  3-x  Blush- 
of-Malta  grade  one,  and  a  few  moments  later  to  say  it 
was  so  funny  that  Wanda  did  not  like  to  embroider,  for 
occupation  if  nothing  else,  and  that  Wanda's  reply  that 
she  embroidered  her  voice  was  meaningless,  at  least  in 
English,  though  it  might  have  some  cruel,  oblique,  in- 
sinuating significance  in  Spanish;  or  in  the  afternoon 
during  Wanda's  siesta,  to  look  under  the  bed  for  "The 
Apples  of  Jacquot-Jacquette,"  on  the  chance  that  the  last 
time  she  dropped  them  they  might  have  rolled  there  from 
the  next  room  and  past  Madame  de  1'Etoile  without  that 
self-centred  singer  having  noticed  it.  Other  than  this  the 
princess  did  not  here  intrude.  But  this  great  advantage 
to  the  little  red  books  had  not  come  about  through  any 
raw,  rude  purpose  of  the  diva.  It  had  precipitated 
through  the  receipt  of  a  surprising  and  delightful  package 
at  the  hotel  to-day. 

Another  of  the  matters  beautifully  out  of  place  was 

272 


The  Warm  Shadow  273 

Madame  de  PEtoile  herself.  Indeed,  she  was  at  the 
Opera.  Routine  enough ;  routine  such  as  breath  or  bread. 
But  she  was  in  a  role  pristinely  new  to  her.  Again,  the 
very  nativity-air  of  temperament.  But  it  was  a  role  in 
an  arduously  foreign  tongue;  and  in  the  prejudgment 
of  her  vast  audience  the  star  was  a  billion  miles — general 
astronomical  statistics — away  from  anything  she  had  any 
business  to  be  doing — embroidery,  for  instance. 

The  third  matter  out  of  place,  and  much  further  out 
than  either  Madame  de  1'Etoile  or  her  book,  was  an  Italian 
in  the  United  States.  (This  Italian.) 

He  was  at  the  Opera  just  now,  theoretically  an  ideal 
surrounding  for  him  while  thus  so  far  from  home;  but 
he  was  shivering,  shivering  from  head  to  foot,  with  an 
emotion  whose  external  show  upon  him  was  as  if  every 
forte  phrase  of  the  drama  of  sound  were  an  attack  of 
German  blacksmiths  on  his  body. 

And  even  the  opera  itself  this  day,  according  to  a 
tradition  never  yet  quite  forgotten  by  the  old  and  cranky, 
was  as  out  of  place  as  anything  in  the  wide  art-world 
could  be,  for  it  was  indigenous,  and  according  to  scripture 
immolate,  to  Bayreuth;  while  here,  in  New  York's  great- 
est theatre,  crammed  with  more  strata  of  humanity  than 
were  numbered  by  the  layers  of  the  huge  house  itself, 
its  most  unique  and  most  singularly  periodic  audience, 
vibrant  with  all  social  symbolisms  from  gang  to  Geth- 
semane,  the  great  Grail  tragedy  of  holiness  and  lust 
intoned  and  gonged  its  strange,  diverse,  and  sonorous 
panoramic  way. 

And  when  the  winter  afternoon  had  slipped  into  full 
winter  night,  the  long  functional  intermission  gone  past 
and  the  second  act  disclosed  its  weird  opening  mystery  of 
evilly  imaginative  castle  of  half  Moorish  and  half  magic 
architecture,  the  lone  Italian  was  not  the  only  man  in  the 
house  who  shivered.  Far  across  from  him,  and  in  the 
gentleness  of  his  love  for  a  friend  tolerating  a  very  weary 
and  wearying  little  "Royalty"  at  his  side,  was  Arnold 
Rutgers.  " Klingsor  was  calling  "Kundry,  here!  Kundry, 


274  The  Great  Way 

here!"  and  it  was  with  all  the  mingled  expectancy  and 
fear  of  a  precieur  that  he  sat  waiting  for  her  answering, 
uncannily  dreadful  screams. 

For  these  few  brief  moments  were,  among  many 
favourite  moments  of  the  long  strange  opera,  the  most 
favourite  with  him. 

And  as  this  woman  emitted  the  fearful  tones,  he  turned 
quite  cold. 

His  shudder  was  not  that  of  the  sheer  satisfaction  of 
a  sensuous  hope  not  merely  appeased,  but  overwhelmed, 
as  by  that  handful  of  long-drawn  terrible  cries  of  damna- 
tion his  had  been.  The  chilling  thrill  held  much  more. 
Nor  was  the  rest  of  it  but  the  shiver  gleaned  from 
Traviata,  with  its  intuitional  sense  of  fatality  for  him. 
Recurrent,  that  had  gripped  him;  but — he  had  not  loved 
her  then.  .  .  .  And  now  .  .  .  God  pity  who  loved  her 
whom  she  did  not  love.  .  .  .  Yet  in  the  rapid  fire — ice-fire 
— of  his  flashing  thoughts  he  escaped  the  absurdity  of 
his  imagination  only  to  shudder  anew  at  the  intellectual 
quality  of  genius  propelling  the  art  with  which  she  had 
not  sung,  nor  screamed,  but  created  those  cries,  at  the 
horrible  consciousness  through  which  this  new  singer, 
replete  with  youthfulness  in  all  but  her  art,  had  with  hot 
streaks  of  searing  passion  not  endowed,  but  explained, 
the  fierce  woman  of  bleeding  laughter.  .  .  . 

As  she  had  sunk  moaning  out  of  vision  as  into  the 
pit,  he  had  closed  his  eyes,  to  hoard  with  sharp  inner 
impress  the  brief  picture  of  her.  In  the  white  shrouding 
robe,  cast  upon  by  its  veiling  strange  blue  light,  she  had 
been  more  than  ever  before — and  moreover  for  the  first 
time  to  his  literal  visual  sense — the  white  stone  of  pure 
blue  water  of  his  imagination.  A  pure  stone,  limpid. 
But  a  pure  stone  with  the  purple  hoot  of  hell  in  it.  Facets. 
.  .  .  He  knew,  now,  how  his  night  would  be  spent  after 
these  next  hours  were  done  and  he  had  fetched  home  the 
wilting  little  flower  at  his  side  and  tucked  her  into  the 
groom  of  the  hotel.  They  would  be  spent  walking  the 
streets  .  .  .  walking.  .  .  .  And  when  his  eyes  opened  the 


The  Warm  Shadow  275 

enchanted  and  enchanting  glum  castle  had  vanished, 
Kundry's  sun-drenched  narcotic  paradise  realmed  the  vast 
stage,  and  another  moment  for  which  he  had  lived  almost 
breathlessly  to-night  was  imminent  before  him.  The 
murmurous  rhapsody  of  the  flowery  maidens  sank  away 
.  .  .  and  she  was  before  him  .  .  .  and  the  unfolding  mo- 
ment made  him  breathless  for  an  instant  quite  entirely, 
despite  his  warning  from  his  glimpsing  taste  of  it  before- 
hand. For  it  both  was  and  was  not  she  before  him.  In 
that  exquisite  outcry  of  colours  and  jewel-lights  and 
imaginative  forms  exotically  habiting  the  white  lovely 
figure,  glowed  the  heavenly  harlot,  the  doomed  irrevoc- 
able whore  and  snake  and  smiling  opiate  of  the  ages. 
.  .  .  While  before  the  strange  woman  de  1'Etoile  lay  the 
hours  of  her  own  test,  not  Parsifal's,  of  her  battle  mag- 
nificent, not  his.  Hours.  .  .  . 

Through  them,  the  peaceful  little  drawing-room  at 
home,  robbed  of  even  its  warm  little  red  leather  books, 
waited  as  it  had  done  since  quite  early  afternoon,  empty 
of  life,  even  of  the  sad  life  of  Jacquot-Jacquette,  who  was 
shivering  like  Mr.  Rutgers  and  the  Italian  at  the  Opera ; 
empty  even  of  sound,  save  the  ticking  of  a  clock,  and, 
hourly,  another  and  inexcusable  noise  from  the  same  in- 
strument. For  it  was  a  cuckoo-like  and  foolish  clock, 
that  every  hour,  as  if  an  exact  moment  made  any  differ- 
ence about  unhappiness,  opened  its  door  and  protested, 
whether  anyone  was  there  or  not ;  a  cuckoo-like  but  not  a 
cuckoo  clock,  for  the  little  bird  who  stepped  out  of  it  had 
a  lyre-bird's  tail,  and  like  the  roost  it  lived  in  was  so 
trivial  and  so  dainty,  so  silly  and  so  like  the  little  princess 
that  upon  that  personage's  frantic  infatuation  for  it 
Wanda  had  gratefully  and  shamelessly  made  it  over  to 
her.  In  the  little  bird's  throat  was  a  little  voice,  that 
also  came  out,  just  like  the  little  bird  itself,  and  said  any- 
thing from  one  to  twelve,  as  the  case  might  be,  in  a  sound 
of  silver  innocence.  It  would  have  needed  an  enormous 
villain  to  have  said  anything  oblique  about  the  character 
of  this  little  bird.  It  and  its  home  were  a  positive  monu- 


276  The  Great  Way 

ment  to  the  art  and  the  snowy  morality  of  Switzerland. 

And  as  if  God,  who  had  permitted  Jacquot-Jacquette 
in  the  world,  felt  sorry  at  having1  allowed  something  still 
more  pitiable,  at  its  heartbreaking  peep  of  midnight  to 
the  empty  room,  three  or  four  figures  came  in. 

There  were  Madame  de  PEtoile,  her  maid,  and  her 
musical  director.  The  optional  fourth,  if  Elise  and 
Jacquot-Jacquette  were  truly  a  separable  group,  was  the 
shivering  Belgian  dragon.  And  indeed,  a  confused  or 
inaccurate  mind  might  have  imagined  another  creature 
from  the  book  of  Natural  History  into  this  trinity  so 
oddly  framed  together  by  their  prodigal  wraps  against 
the  cold,  for  the  musical  director  was  encased  by  a  fur 
coat  so  large,  so  thick  and  ostensible,  so  reckless  of  sur- 
roundings and  so  long  of  hair,  that  with  nothing  of  his 
humanity  but  his  big  brown  eyes  shining  out  of  it  as  they 
did,  he  looked  like  a  polar  bear. 

This  was  the  third  dislocated  matter  of  the  evening, 
the  Italian  in  the  United  States ;  and  the  vast  rugged  and 
ruglike  shag  that  would  have  made  him  splendid  at  the 
Opera  as  both  Fasolt  and  Fafner  in  The  Rheingold  was 
one  of  his  agencies  against  disaster  in  so  hazardous  a  part 
of  the  geography. 

Happily,  most  happily  uprooted  and  potted  for  a  hot- 
house winter  he,  but  not  by  any  virtues  of  North  America 
— only  by  virtue/ of  Madame  de  I'Etoile  and  her  triumphs, 
the  deep-breathing  satisfaction  of  proximity  to  her.  For 
this  child  of  Naples,  who  had  wriggled  up  out  of  the 
Italian  soil  with  a  bland  wide-eyed  gaze  and  an  earring- 
to-earring  smile  for  the  whole  visible  world  and  especially 
for  the  Mediterranean,  who  had  sailed  that  ocean  un- 
counted times,  from  stem  to  stern,  from  Genoa  to  Gibral- 
tar and  Cadiz  to  Barcelona,  who  had  never  been  sea-sick 
and  who  knew  a  boat  from  leeward  to  steward,  and 
who  usually  had  embarked  on  a  vessel  that  looked  as 
if  it  would  teeter-tawter  at  the  thought  of  a  bath-tub, 
had  firmly  (as  indeed  many  precocious  persons  do) 
stopped  short  at  the  Atlantic. 


The  Warm  Shadow  277 

There  was  a  difference  between  the  Atlantic  and  the 
Mediterranean,  and  no  one  could  deny  it.  Least  of  all 
could  Madame  de  PEtoile,  with  her  love  of  truth,  an 
element  of  her  nature  best-known  to  this  man  of  all  those 
whom  she  loved  or  who  loved  her;  and  withal,  her  in- 
ability, in  this  large  case  of  a  notorious  ocean  to  deal  with, 
to  make  him  see  her  fine  point  of  distinction  between 
facts  and  truths,  between  statistics  and  principles.  There 
were  dragons  in  that  sea,  though  he  did  not  tell  her  so. 
There  they  were,  there,  for  this  great  and  brave  man 
anyhow,  who  had  already  faced  Elise's  monster  on  land 
without  one  squirm  or  quaver;  while,  first  and  last,  no 
oceanic,  submarine  Jacquot-Jacquette  of  cathedral  size 
and  seaweed  on  its  tail  compared  in  fabricated  awfulness 
with  that  sea  itself.  That  love  had  forced  his  foot  on 
board  the  frail  leviathan  devised  by  man  in  his  shallow 
egoism  to  carry  them  to  safety  through  such  perils  had 
meant  a  soul  that  was  an  angel's  soul  with  fists  of 
martyrs'  steel.  But  to  the  United  States  Madame  de 
PEtoile  would  go,  and  to  the  United  States  had  gone  her 
Maestro,  following  his  Star.  Columbus  was  an  Italian, 
too. 

He  had  emerged  from  his  prairie-dog  hole  of  fur, 
letting  it  mound  up  on  the  floor  behind  him,  and  crystal- 
lizing to  the  comparative  decollete  of  an  evening-suit,  a 
thin  sparkling-eyed  figure  of  light-like  lines  and  a  blaze 
of  diamonds ;  and  she,  semi  without  and  semi  with  Elise's 
one-handed  help  had  slipped  from  her  swathings  too,  and 
in  a  soft  rare  frock  was  perched  rather  exhaustedly,  not 
quite  daring  to  relax,  on  the  edge  of  the  couch.  And 
though  something  other  than  their  many  bandages  that 
had  warmed  them  through  their  wordless  drive  home — an 
electric-like  current  of  rich  telepathic  happiness — was 
coursing  between  these  two  and  await  for  speech,  her  first 
words  were  to  the  maid. 

"Elise,  will  you  see  if  Daisy  is  yet  home?" 

"She  is  asleep,  Madame,"  said  Elise. 

As  they  had  but  this  moment  entered,  Wanda's  sur- 


278  The  Great  Way 

prise  at  the  promptitude  of  this  answer  betrayed  itself. 

"Are  you  sure,  Elise?  She  was  at  the  performance. 
How  do  you  know?" 

"I  would  not  say  so  if  I  were  not  sure,  Madame.  She 
went  to  sleep  during  the  Communion  Scene.  I  saw  her, 
as  we  were  watching  in  the  wings.  And  now  she  is  asleep 
here.  I  heard  her,  as  we  came  in." 

Wanda  was  momentarily  silenced — not  by  Elise's 
ubiquitous  logic,  which  she  knew  by  heart,  but  to  the 
romantic  mind  of  Madame  de  1'Etoile  the  idea  of  a  loudly 
sleeping  princess  was  news,  somehow.  A  "little  tipsy 
flower"  had  been  a  voluntary  simile  of  her  own.  But  a 
snoring  forget-me-not  .  .  .  !  And  in  search  for  a  tactful 
rejoinder  she  came  upon  a  neglected  thought  that  seemed 
to  her  a  most  fortunate  one. 

"Oh,  Elise,  I  found  such  a  pretty  book  for  you  on  a 
stall  this  morning!  It  is  in  English,  but  of  words  so 
simple  that  even  I  could  read  the  whole  first  page.  So  if 
you  are  not  sleepy,  you  may  amuse  yourself  with  it  now. 
I  am  sure  it  is  pretty.  I  chose  it  by  the  title — 'A  Modest 
Passion.'  " 

"Thank  you,  Madame,  but  I  have  read  it,"  said 
Elise. 

"Oh,  I  am  sorry!"  said  Wanda,  disconcerted.  "I  did 
not  suppose  you  had  read  anything  in  English." 

"I  had  not,  Madame.  But  I  was  certain  you  must 
have  intended  it  for  me.  I  knew  that  Parsifal  was  very 
long.  So  while  you  were  singing  the  temptation  scene,  I 
read  *A  Modest  Passion'  through,  Madame." 

"If,"  said  Wanda  thoughtfully,  "if  Madame  la 
Princesse  is — is  as  sound  asleep  as  you  say,  you  might 
tip-toe  in  and  get  Jacquot-Jacquette  to  finish!" 

"Thank  you,  Madame,"  said  Elise,  and  thus  dismissed 
with  a  bonus — and  a  prized  one,  for  it  led  her  to  believe 
Madame  had  forgotten  the  erstwhile  and  betrayed  nefari- 
ous finishing  of  that  fateful  volume — she  departed;  but 
first  practising  a  formality.  Aside  from  the  living  prize 
Jacquot-Jacquette  she  had  not  been  empty-handed  of 


The  Warm  Shadow  279 

priceless  treasure,  and  with  graceful  precision  she  prof- 
fered Madame  de  1'Etoile  her  jewel-box. 

Then  she  and  the  poor  shivering  bete-noire  of  her  were 
gone;  and  in  this  their  first  moment  of  coveted  solitude 
together,  even  along  with  Madame's  slight  gesture  of  the 
jewel-box  to  the  couch  beside  her,  her  companion  was 
electrically  a  step  toward  her,  his  long  arm  and  its 
Rubaiyat  forefinger  pump-handling  the  air  pointer-wise 
at  her,  and  his  autumn-pool  eyes  shining  rich  competition 
with  the  glitter  of  diamonds  on  the  sawing  hand;  and  as 
if  the  latest  tongue  of  her  fond  adoption  must  be  mo- 
mentarily his  child  too  to  sufficiently  pleasure  her,  he 
spoke  in  English. 

"I  did  not  wanted  you  to  sang  it!  Fiercely  with 
fervour  cried  me  against  you!  And  to-night  you  again 
teach  me  morever  f orover  our  music-lesson :  /  can  trust 
you!  Shoo-oo-oo-er!" 

And  thus  for  once  strangely  using  his  favourite  and 
formerly  one  English  word  where  it  belonged,  he  smiled 
— a  smile  that  vanished  into  a  different,  a  deeper  facial 
exudition  of  happiness  at  the  responding  words  that  swept 
from  her  seated  figure  all  its  vestige  of  lassitude  and  lifted 
her  hands  exquisitely  toward  him. 

"Yes,  darling,  yes — after  all  your  patience,  all  your 
devotion,  all  your  care  for  me  through  the  Gran  Via — 
yes!" 

And  then,  as  if  all  vital  value  of  it  for  them  had  been 
consumed  by  his  little  explosion  of  almost  resentful  happi- 
ness in  her  triumph  and  her  own  usage  for  him  of  the 
exquisite  English  word  of  caress,  they  dropped  their 
foreign  language,  and  their  little  at-home  sacred-musical- 
festival-play  topping  the  vast  one  at  the  Opera  to-night 
was  in  a  tongue  ineffable,  Spanish,  Italian,  a  Latin  un- 
writable, yet  as  if  composed  for  them  by  some  neo-classic, 
neo-modern  opera-author  who  had  mixed  the  traditions, 
which  were  her  voice,  with  ultra  innovations,  which  were 
his.  His  air-sawing,  diamonded  hand  had  fallen  glitter- 
ing into  his  pocket,  mechanically,  with  the  mechanism  of 


280  The  Great  Way 

human  animal  instinct,  and  fetched  out  a  mussed  array 
of  Manila  cigarettes,  and  the  air  and  colours  of  the  pretty 
room  were  clouded  with  Bohemian  billows  of  smoke  even 
as  with  Peninsula  rapidity  of  deed  upon  thought  she  had 
risen  and  with  her  exhaustion  gone  as  if  it  had  not  been, 
swept  across  to  the  piano ;  and  a  loud  Neapolitan  protest 
followed  her. 

"Yet  indeed  never  can  you  be  trusted!  You  shall  not 
sing  when  I  have  smoked !  It  was  a  long  opera  and  you 
must  not  sing!  It  was  a  long  opera  and  I  must  smoke! 
And  I  must  not  smoke  if  you  sing!" 

With  her  reply  her  eyes  were  starry  with  a  moment's 
far-off  pensiveness  of  starlight,  her  voice  was  soft  as  star- 
light, near  to  forget-me-not,  despite  their  so  different 
colour,  with  memory,  nearer  still  to  that  blossom  with 
tenderness  for  him. 

"The  whole  audience  smoked  in  the  Tivoli  in  Barce- 
lona !  .  .  .  Before  that,  before  you  knew  me,  in  the 
Alcazar  even  the  women  in  the  audience  smoked!  And 
if  you  do  not  smoke,  I  will  not  sing!" 

At  that  mention  of  the  Alcazar,  reminiscence  poign- 
anter  for  him  to  whom  it  did  not  belong  than  even  to 
her  to  whom  it  did,  a  little  choke  stopped  his  new  remon- 
strance. She  had  fetched  the  jewel-box  to  the  piano  with 
her;  all  the  wealth  of  it,  that  she  had  elected  to  wear  as 
Kundry,  lay  in  the  rosy  lamplight  shimmering,  frostily 
shivering,  animatedly,  livingly  as  Jacquot-Jacquette ;  and 
with  one  hand  she  lifted  out  one  loved  trinket  of  old  pearls 
and  a  ruby  as  with  the  other  she  strayed  over  the  key- 
board drawing  from  it  notes,  delicate  as  the  jewels,  from 
the  "Air  des  Bijoux"  of  Faust. 

"Paris!  Paris  gave  me  this!  It  has  in  it  a  bit  of  du 
Barry's  heart  that  was  cut  out  of  her  body  after  she  was 
guillotined,  and  kept  through  the  generations  and  set  for 
me  inside  a  jewel  that  she  wore — an  ear-ring — this  ring. 
And  as  I  was  no  longer  anything  like  her,  I  could  wear 
it  for  them — for  the  people — for  Paris ;  and  I  did.  And 
do.  Paris.  ." 


The  Warm  Shadow  281 

She  broke  off,  and  her  voice  strayed  into  the  song — 
softly,  bits  of  it ;  fulsomely,  all  of  it.  Facets.  .  .  . 

"It  was  after  I  had  sung  them  that,  that  Paris  sent 
it  to  me.  Do  you  remember?" 

And  very  softly,  his  eyes  toward  the  floor,  his  chin 
in  his  hand,  he  answered: 

"I  remember!" 

"And  these!"  Her  hand  lifted  another  loveliness  from 
the  rich  chest.  "They  threw  me  these,  in  Petersburg, 
right  in  the  theatre — yes,  as  I  sang — as — as  7  sang! 
They  gave,  nor  would  they  take  back  again,  afterward, 
despite  I  thought  they  ought,  on  account  of  Russian 
emotion — emotion  at  this." 

And  the  voice  that  was  lovelier  than  the  jewels  swept 
joyously  into  La  Traviata,  the  "Ah,  fors  e  lui"  which 
was  so  great,  and  so  right,  a  part  of  her  fame. 

"Do  you  remember?" 

And  again  it  was  very  softly  that  he  answered:  "I 
remember !" 

"And  this!" 

And  at  the  first  note  he  started  and  an  ejaculation 
came  from  him :  "Rome !"  for  the  wonderful  voice,  sud- 
denly profound  with  colour,  had  vibrated  the  room  with 
the  opening  organ-tone  of  "O  Patria  mia !"  And  pres- 
ently, without  written  music  but  with  a  wonderful  music 
of  its  own,  the  voice  was  again  addressing  him:  "They 
gave  me,  that  night,  only  noise,  but  such  a  loving,  under- 
standing noise!  Dio !  And  just  as  I  was  feeling  a  little 
lonely  there,  because  no  fond  foolish  jewelry  was  given 
me,  and  this  being  an  Egyptian  opera,  and  I  no  longer 
having  the  pretty  Egyptian  beads  I  loved,  and  being 
God  knew  how  far  from  the  friend  who  did  have  them, 
the  friend  I  loved  so  much  more,  just  at  that  lonely 
moment,  Rome  gave  me  this!" 

And  she  held  aloft  from  the  treasure-box  a  resplendent, 
glittering  thing — her  wonderful  bandeau  of  brilliants — 
radiant,  like  Rome;  stately — like  Rome. 

"Your   crown !"   he    cried,   declaring  it.      "Yes,   your 


282  The  Great  Way 

crown,  for  that  was  greatest  of  all — yes,  yes,  to  me,  the 
greatest  of  your  great  nights !" 

"Except,"  she  said  softly,  "perhaps,  my  'Traviata' 
here,  which  I  admit,  if  only  for  your  sake,  was  an  after- 
noon; and  except,  perhaps — perhaps — to-night!  But  ah, 
my  dear — "  for  she  saw  in  his  brown-gold  eye-pools  a 
ripple  of  storm  for  the  forbidden  music  she  had  to-night 
indulged  in,  "do  you  remember — this?" 

And  her  fingers  rippled  into  the  gaiety,  her  voice  into 
the  lyrical  sweetness,  of  the  "Cigarette  Song"  from  Gran 
Via. 

It  was  a  strange  capping  of  Gounod  and  of  Verdi, 
but  cap  it  was,  with  bells,  and  colours,  and  a  triumphant 
feather,  for  she  sang  it  now  as  she  had  not  sung  it  in 
the  Spanish  Tivoli,  as  she  had  not,  and  even  with  life 
hanging  with  its  whole  weight  to  her  tones  could  not  have 
sung  it,  in  the  Hotel  de  Francia  of  the  little  Plaza  de 
Loreto.  And  upon  the  last  harping  tinkle  of  it  his 
answering  voice  was  passionate. 

"/  remember  that?  It  was  after  you  had  looked  at 
those  notes,  and  said  'That  is  pretty,'  and  I  had  said  '/ 
can  trust  you,'  and  I  was  standing  in  the  little  Plaza 
and  I  whistled  that  for  you,  because  I  saw  those  English 
coming,  and  you  had  said  to  me  you  were  running  away 
from  them  for  me — it  was  then  that  I  knew  you  were  the 
darling  of  my  brain,  and  that  I  would  always  fear  for 
you ;  that " 

His  voice  choked,  and  she  finished  for  him : 

"That  our  noses  would  always  go  the  same  way!  But 
— darling,  darling,  you  say  'fear*  for  me,  and  with — with 
tears — to-night  ?" 

"Remember,"  he  said  huskily,  "I  am  your  father  and 
your  mother,  two  hundred  years  old  apiece,  and  for  every 
one  of  those  old  four  hundred  years,  proud  of  you !" 

"Oh !"  she  breathed,  and  there  was  in  her  own  voice 
a  sudden  little  sob.  "What  words !" 

"And  'fear'?"  his  words  swept  on.  "Fear  is  the  lot 
of  parents!  And  you  ask  'To-night?'  Yes,  to-night 


The  Warm  Shadow  283 

more  than  some  other  times,  for  though  my  torment  in 
that  great  big  red  barn  is  over,  I  had  it  to  experience, 
as  I  had  the  Atlantic !  And  there  will  be  more  of  your 
whimsies !  I  will  live  torments  again !  There  is  your 
monstrous  habit  of  new  roles  for  new  places,  and  we  have 
not  sung  yet  in  Zulu-Land!  I  have  even  London  yet 
to  undergo.  You  will  not  sign  your  beautiful  contract 
for  London.  You  know  how  they  thirst  for  your  Traviata 
there,  and  you  will  not  sign  it.  And  I  know  why — for 
I  know  you,  you,  you.  At  last  you  will  sign  it.  And 
then — whimsie !  Yes,  I  know  you !  I  can  believe,  in  my 
worst  moments  of  despair,  that  when  at  last  you  should 
go  to  London,  you  would  make  your  first  appearance 
there  in  'Isolde' !" 

"Why,"  she  exclaimed,  gazing  at  him  with  brows  raised, 
and  eyes  wide  in  either  a  child's  naivete  or  a  serpent's 
subtlety,  "why,  that  is  exactly  what  I  plan  to  do !" 

He  had  been  pacing,  diamonded-hands  mobile  as  a  wind- 
mill, and  this  sank  him,  groaning  and  the  hands  clasped 
like  a  Magdalene's  on  top  of  his  head,  the  fire  of  the 
diamonds  smothered  in  black  brilliantined  hair. 

Merciless  in  her  stirred  thoughts  she  had  turned  back 
to  the  keyboard,  and  softly,  exquisitely,  chorded  sugges- 
tions of  the  Liebestod  seeped  from  it;  but  whatever  her 
intention,  her  voice  did  not  touch  it,  as  if  it  were  too 
sacred  a  thing  even  for  her  home,  and  for  him,  as  yet; 
and  as  if  something  of  this  sped  to  him  through  their 
telepathic  line  of  understanding,  he  looked  up,  his  storm 
blown  over,  his  face  exquisite  with  tenderness  as  some 
amateur  Christ's  above  the  calmed  waves  of  it. 

"I  know  what  you  want.  Here  have  I  let  you  sing 
and  myself  smoke.  Here  have  you  sung  a  whole  after- 
noon and  night  the  whole  German  Baedeker,  and  you  sit 
up  till  morning  singing  to  please  me  in  a  side-street 
music-hall  of  tobacco,  when  what  you  want  is  to  write 
your  own  Baedeker!  Yes,  I  know — your  own  red-covered 
book!  And  your  only  word  of  longing  was  in  those 
piano  tones  there !  I  know  your  thoughts !  I  will  prove 


284  The  Great  Way 

it.  I  knew  a  thought  of  yours  five  minutes  ago,  when 
after  singing  for  me  of  Paris,  and  Petersburg,  and  Rome, 
to  make  me  happy,  you  said  to-night  was  your  perhaps 
great  night.  Do  you  remember  your  own  thought  then? 
You  were  thinking — for  I  know  you ! — 'These  United 
States  have  given  me  no  jewels  to  hold  up  to  his  proud 
eyes.  These  unemotional  United  States,  I  must  love  for 
the  jewels  of  appreciation  they  give'!  That  was  your 
thought,  and  I  knew  it !  And  you  want  now,  you  have 
wanted  every  minute,  your  little  books  that  I  smoke  you 
away  from!" 

There  were  tears  in  her  eyes  as  she  sat  gazing  at  him, 
but  she  brushed  them  away  with  joyous  words. 

"Darling,  a  lie  to  you  would  be  a  useless  lie,  and  I 
have  thought  of  my  little  books,  and  sometimes  here  in 
these  United  States  I  have  thought  as  you  say  about  my 
pretty  jewelry.  But  my  thought  of  five  minutes  ago, 
though  you  divined  it  in  a  way,  was  directly  opposite  to 
the  way  you  read  it.  For  I  have  had  a  present  here,  in 
these  Estados  Unidos,  and  so  strange,  so  strangely 
beautiful  a  present,  coming  out  of  that  same  nameless 
heartbeat  as  Rome's,  or  Petersburg's,  or  my  heart's  Place 
de  1'Opera's.  And  you  must  see  it — indeed,  is  it  not 
partly  yours?  It  is  in  there — yes,  to-night  we  will  be 
outrageous,  and  you  shall  come  into  my  bedroom!  In- 
deed, as  truthful  persons  in  our  glory,  did  we  not  sleep 
in  one  bed,  all  five  of  us,  one  night?  Do  you  remember 
that?  It  was  on  the  way  to  Geneva — where  I  enjoyed  the 
Opera  so,  for  it  made  the  same  noise  the  bull-fight  does  at 
home!  Come!"  And  she  took  him  with  one  hand,  the 
jewel-box  with  the  other.  "This,  as  you  will  see,  goes 
into  my  beautiful  United  States  present,  instead  of  my 
United  States  present  into  it!" 

And  here,  on  a  table  set  for  it  beside  her  bed,  was  the 
extraordinary  present — a  thing  black-leather  covered, 
that  thus,  with  its  eyes  closed,  seemed  to  his  wide-open 
staring  ones  a  plain  oblong  box,  and  looked  like  a  travel- 
ling salesman's  sheathed  battle-axe ;  but  that,  upon  her 


The  Warm  Shadow  285 

unlocking  it  with  an  incredibly  small  key,  and  his  un- 
controllable fingers  winning  over  hers  to  the  toy  task  of 
opening  it,  unfolded  itself  into  a  beautiful  piece  of  furni- 
ture of  intricate  workmanship,  a  miniature  desk,  of 
leather,  and  wood,  and  delicate  metal  fixtures,  of  diminu- 
tive drawers  and  shelves  and  compartments,  Orient- 
suggesting  in  its  involution  and  minute  success  of  plan, 
and  its  several  parts  building  up  like  a  stairway  narrow- 
ing in  perspective.  Thus  had  she  been  loved  by  some 
quaint  ingrowing  mind  that  could  spend  and  had  spent 
itself  and  its  hands  upon  such  a  device  for  her  possible 
pleasure — manifestation,  quite  literally  manifestation,  of 
a  love  esoteric  and  as  deeply  innocent  as  esoteric. 

Together,  and  to  an  accompaniment  of  his  guttural 
squeals  of  delight,  they  constructed  it,  and  as  it  mounted 
under  their  careful  hands  to  the  likeness  of  the  side  of  a 
pyramid : 

"One  more  reason  why  I  love  this  gift!"  she  whis- 
pered. "And  see — also  little  shelves,  and  little  leather 
books !  They  are  literature-books,  not  music.  Yet, 
nothing  else  but  books  that  have  become  operas !  A  little 
Pelleas,  a  little  Romeo,  a  little  Carmen !  And — room  for 


more 


i" 


"I  know  which  more !"  he  cried,  and  opening  the  lowest 
part,  he  disclosed  triumphantly  her  case  of  red-bound 
treasures,  which  had  fitted  to  a  tune  of  precision  in  a  half 
of  the  lowermost  space  of  it. 

She  made  no  denial.     Only  she  said  gently: 

"My  jewel-case,  in  there!" 

"It  is  this  jewel-case  you  want,"  he  said,  "and  you 
shall  have  it.  I  am  glad  you  have  your  little  jewel- 
Baedeker-library  in  here — in  this,  and  in  this  room. 
Away  from  nuisances.  I  know  you.  Having  found  your 
mistake,  you  would  not  have  moved  your  writing  without 
this  chance  reason.  But  I  am  glad  your  singing  with 
ink  is  removed  from  that  Throne  Room — from  that 
Royalty,  that  Crowned  Head,  that  Empress  of  Russia, 
that  Queen  of  Scorpions !  You  should  be  in  bed ;  and 


286  The  Great  Way 

I  would  make  you,  I  would  chastise  you  to  there,  but 
that  I  know  that  this  will  rest  you  more.  And  it  will 
not  be  driving  me,  your  parents,  away.  I  will  sit  in 
there,  and  smoke  my  cigarettes  until  they  are  gone.  And 
if  you  have  finished  before  they  are,  come  back  in  there 
and  we  will  say  good  night.  And  if  the  cigarettes  are 
finished  first,  the  good  night  does  not  matter.  We  will 
not  say  it.  I  will  not  interrupt  you." 

Wordlessly,  she  looked  at  him,  touched  his  cheek  with 
her  fingers;  and  wordlessly,  he  left  her  bedroom  and 
closed  the  door. 

Motionless,  she  gazed  at  that  gently  closed  door  for 
a  moment,  her  face  a  mask  of  wonder  at  the  wonder  of 
human  feeling;  then  she  seated  herself  and  lifted  out  the 
newest  of  the  little  red  books. 

To-night,  my  own,  be  glad,  be  glad  with  me!  I  have 
sung  Kundry !  Once  more,  how  happy  I  am !  For  it  was 
another  triumph,  and  for  here,  my  greatest.  For  I  know 
the  verdict,  and  can  tell  you  before  to-morrow's  papers — 
because  in  this  case,  you  see,  some  of  the  great  critics — 
ah,  so  kindly ! — have  been  to  my  dressing-room ;  and  the 
public  mind,  that  mind  of  my  people,  I  can  sometimes  read 
without  help  of  periodico  print.  And  my  own,  from  things 
beforehand,  and  from  things  now,  the  chief  excitement 
seems  to  be,  because  7  should  sing  it  so.  Why  not?  Well, 
on  account  of  my  other  great  roles,  it  seems.  People  think 
them  a  strange  assortment — Mimi,  Traviata,  Carmen, 
Juliette,  and  now,  Kundry.  (And  Tosca.  If  I  had  sung 
her.  I  think  of  her  among  them,  for  she  is  in  me,  living 
though  await.  For  some  reason,  as  if  from  some  reason 
making  me  wait  without  telling  me  why,  I  have  never  al- 
lowed her  yet ;  and  ah,  there  is  a  part !  That  last  cry 
.  .  .  when  hope  is  over,  and  knowing  that,  she  leaps!  .  .  . 
Dio!  .  .  .)  Well,  this  diversity  on  my  part  is  unusual, 
perhaps,  but  why  so  very  wonderful  ?  I  think  myself  it  is 
because  Americans,  accustomed  to  do  anything  and  every- 
thing, and  never  thinking  to  pause  at  anything  or  every- 


The  Warm  Shadow  287 

thing,  consider  us  foreigners  as  able  to  do  only  one  thing 
supremely  well  each,  according  to  nation.  Yet  has  not 
something  similar  been  greatly  done?  — Nordica  again! 
She  sings  Traviata,  she  sings  Kundry !  And  she  sings 
Isolde!  .  .  .  Dio !  Dio !  .  .  .  And  if  she  has  not  sung 
Carmen,  has  not  Calve  sung  that  and  Marguerite?  Well, 
so  have  I!  And  again  I  say,  Why  Not?  Alas,  they  allow 
my  Carmen  great,  but  generations  after  she  is  dead,  Car- 
men will  still  be  Calve — and  rightly  so — unless  her  ghost 
gets  into  a  factory-fight  with  Minnie  Hauk's.  I  am  in- 
clined to  think  Calve's  will  win  anyway,  for  thank  God  I 
have  heard  her.  I  am  still  too  young  to  have  heard  Minnie 
Hauk.  (What  is  the  matter  with  that  English?  Some- 
thing!) But  they  place  my  Carmen  next,  anyway.  They 
say  I  put  the  very  streets  of  Sevilla  in  her,  and  perhaps  I 
do.  ...  I  know  those  streets  of  Sevilla!  It  was  there 
that  first.  .  .  .  But  I  have  said  that  my  soul  is  new.  .  .  . 

One  thing  they  grant  me  with  "the  whole  heart":  that 
no  one  ever  has  sung,  that  no  one  ever  will  sing,  the  little 
song  "The  Daughters  of  Cadiz"  as  I  do.  That  makes  me 
happy,  and  I  sing  it  at  ever}'  excuse — I  always  put  it  into 
"The  Barber  of  Sevilla,"  where  Rossini's  song  was  lost. 
And  how  annoyed  it  makes  the  audiences,  my  own,  that  I 
do  not  instead  sing  a  Strauss  waltz — until  they  have  heard 
me  sing  "Les  Filles  de  Cadiz" !  .  .  . 

Of  the  Kundry,  my  own,  there  is  one  thing  said  about 
me  to-night  that  arouses  my  heart's  interest.  It  is  that 
as  Kundry  there  is  about  me,  and  even  in  my  voice,  a 
something  barbaric,  a  something  Moorish,  as  if  I  had 
brought  it  with  me  from  my  country — from  there  in  the 
North,  where  is  said  to  have  been  the  Holy  Grail  at 
Montserrat,  there  in  the  cleft  of  the  Holy  Mountain,  our 
Sagrada  Montana.  And  I  have  never  been  there!  How 
sorry  and  ashamed  that  makes  me  feel !  And  I  have  but 
lately,  in  my  thoughts  and  studies  of  Parsifal  and  Kundry, 
found  that  I  must  have  walked  almost  under  the  very 
shadow  of  it  in  my  terrible  Gran  Via,  before  I  came  to 
the  blessed  little  town  in  the  foot-hills  of  which  I  have 


288  The  Great  Way 

told  you.  How  high,  how  wonderful  it  must  be,  standing 
like  a  magical  rampart  there  with  its  great  grotesques  on 
its  top  thousands  of  feet  above  the  River  Llobregat !  Do 
you  know,  my  own,  that  when  I  think  very  much  about 
it,  likening  it  in  my  mind  to  some  sorcerer-fabrication  of 
Klingsor's,  I  have  a  strange  prophetic  feeling  about  the 
Sagrada  Montana?  I  have  a  feeling  that  besides  all  my 
desire  and  my  intention  to  go  sometime  to  it,  I  am  to  go. 
There  is  about  it  in  my  imagination  something  so  high, 
so  wonderfully  high,  so  toward  God,  that  it  seems  to  call 
to  my  ambition,  my  aspiration.  .  .  .  Am  I  morose  again 
— as  I  was  about  that  terrible  money  till  God  stopped 
me — when  I  feel  that  perhaps  it  would  be  to  sing  my 
"swan  song"?  .  .  . 

But  I  am  happy  .  .  .  and  let  me  tell  you  something! 
To-day,  as  if  a  tribute  to  my  Kundry  in  American  faith 
and  generosity  even  before  I  sang  it,  someone,  someone 
just  from  among  people,  has  sent  me  a  beautiful  present. 
Oh — But  I  must  tell  you  about  that  later,  for  another 
love,  a  love  known  to  me,  my  Maestro's,  waits  in  the  next 
room  patiently,  patiently  while  I  talk  to  you.  And  I  must 
go  back  to  him  for  "good  nights"  in  our  Spanish,  yours 
and  mine,  and  in  a  polyglot,  mine  and  his,  when  I  have 
told  you  just  one  more  thing  about  Traviata.  To-night 
I  can,  for  my  Kundry,  and  my  Maestro,  and  my  beautiful 
present,  all  drive  me  to,  but  till  now  I  was  too  angry,  and 
then  too  downcast  at  myself.  For  my  own,  I  am  deeply 
filled  with  remorse  over  something.  I  have  boasted  to  you 
that  I  try  to  be  kind  to  women,  try  always  to  love  them. 
Even  Elise.  And  my  OWH,  I  do  try  to  love  Elise,  and  even 
her  gargoyle.  But  my  own,  there  have  to  be  some  people 
in  the  world  one  does  not  love.  It  is  wrong,  of  course, 
absolutely,  but  it  is  a  fact.  And  with  Elise,  perhaps  there 
is  some  excuse  for  me — a  sad  excuse! — that  I  was  not 
born  to  having  lady's-maids.  For  it  would  seem  to  be  the 
awful  truth  that  in  this  combination,  the  lady  is 
Elise — being  from  France,  where  every  woman  is  so  alarm- 
ingly aristocratic,  whether  in  a  blanchisserie  or  not.  If 


The  Warm  Shadow  289 

Elise  went  into  society,  she  would  wear  one  ear-ring  and 
an  orang-outang,  and  be  applauded  for  it.  If  I  did  that, 
I  would  not  be.  Being  of  the  people,  I  have  to  earn  ap- 
plause by  hard  work — as  I  did  to-night.  However,  I  am 
not  downhearted.  If  I  could  learn  to  sing  Kundry,  per- 
haps I  can  yet  learn  to  love  Elise.  Anyway,  you  know 
how  I  do  love  "La  Traviata."  The  Wayward  One !  (How 
pretty  in  English!)  Well,  there  is  a  beautiful  priraa 
donna  here,  who  is  lovely  to  me  when  I  have  first  came 
here.  Of  the  whole  opera  house,  the  most  lovely  and  wel- 
coming. She  is  beautiful.  Even  now  I  admit  it.  Even 
her  nose  is  beautiful.  But  she  sings  through  it.  Well,  she 
had  never  sung  Traviata  through  it.  You  know  how  there 
were  delays  and  delays  of  my  singing  it,  once  I  had 
changed  my  mind  about  it  for  my  American  debut. 
Rather,  you  do  not  know  how,  and  now  7  do.  My  own, 
can  you  believe  such  a  thing?  It  is  because  she  was  a 
politician!  An  unsuccessful  one,  but  imagine  such  a 
thing !  My  lovely  Traviata!  Anyway,  I  sang  it.  After- 
ward, so  has  she.  But  still  less  will  you  believe  what  a  ter- 
rible thing  /  have  done.  For,  my  own,  I  have  committed 
a  low  and  unworthy  action.  One  of  the  sensations  here  of 
my  beautiful  Traviata  is  the  very  end  of  Act  One.  It  has 
been  very  famously  done  before.  Just  what  7  do — well,  I 
do  not  steam-whistle  it,  and  I  do  not  tremolo  it,  or  sew 
buttons  on  it,  or  wave  a  flag  with  it.  Perhaps  I  can  best 
tell  it  you  that  in  that  instant  I  prove  that  I  am  not  only 
a  great  coloratura,  but  a  great  lyric  singer.  It  is  some- 
thing that  even  the  most  beautiful  nose  could  not  possibly 
do.  It  needs  a  throat,  and  several  things  beside — as  was 
found  out  later.  For  meantime  7  had  found  out,  and  I 
was  there,  from  both  good  manners  and  evil  curiosity. 
And  as  she  is  a  great  actress — I  admit  that — at  that  try- 
ing point  she  takes  those  lovely  notes  and  turns  them  into 
a  sensational  scream  of  laughter.  And  it  was  then,  at 
that  great  moment  of  her  melodrama  triumph  with  her 
following,  that  I  seized  my  terrible  revenge,  for  I  was  all 
prepared.  I  had  tried  to  calm  my  indignation,  but  my 


290  The  Great  Way 

mind  had  festered.  And  in  that  intermission,  by  a  subtle 
means  that  she  could  not  discover  me — well,  I  might  as 
well  confess  to  you  the  means — by  an  anonymous  messen- 
ger boy,  I  have  gaven  her  a  box  of  bird-seed! 

My  own,  can  you  ever  respect  me  again?  But  my  con- 
science has  tortured  me,  for  my  own,  for  several  days  she 
was  very  ill,  so  ill  I  have  wondered  if  she  had  not  taken  it 
for  what  it  was  worth,  and  eaten  it !  Nor  can  I  be  quite 
certain  of  my  life  either,  for  I  have  met  her  at  a  party 
since,  and  could  not  be  quite  assured  from  her  kisses 
whether  they  were  because  she  had  unmasked  me,  or  to 
cover  up  her  own  crimes  against  me.  I  was  almost  afraid 
to  open  that  beautiful  package  that  came  to-day!  But 
my  own,  my  own,  though  it  has  eased  me  to  confess  to  you, 
God  forgive  me  for  something  else — I  had  forgotten  my 
Maestro!  .  .  . 

She  went  swiftly  to  the  door  and  opened  it,  and  a  little 
sound  of  hurt  conscience  came  from  her;  for  she  was 
greeted  only  by  blackness  and  a  drift  of  dying  cigarette- 
smoke.  Softly  as  if  the  drifting  odour  were  a  loved  pres- 
ence, she  closed  the  door  again,  with  a  long  sigh  at  the 
sense  of  replete  solitude  the  action  gave  her. 

My  own,  how  very  selfish  I  can  be,  even  to  my  nearest, 
dearest !  He  had  gone,  not  even  for  a  "good  night" 
willing  to  take  me  from  you !  But  I  can  be  glad  of  it 
and  of  my  aloneness  without  too  great  selfishness,  because 
that  lack  of  a  Dios  seems  to-night  to  mean,  somehow,  that 
still  is  his  gentle  presence  here  with  me,  helping  me  like 
to-day's  beautiful  present  to  write  on  to  you  freely  in  that 
aloneness  with  you  that  I  craved. 

My  own,  hotly,  frightenedly  my  little  red  book  talked 
to  you  one  night,  red,  ruddy-blood-colourcd  like  its  cover, 
black,  black-of-night  like  its  ink — talked  of  the  strange 
geography  of  the  Great  Way,  of  the  Epiphany,  with  its 
light,  the  Wilderness,  with  its  voice,  with  its  voice  of 
pages  cried  desperately  out  to  you  asking  if  this  could 


The  Warm  Shadow  291 

be  its  Valle  Malo.  Surely,  surely,  my  own,  it  cannot  be, 
and  what  I  cry  out  to  you  to-night  is,  what,  then,  can 
it  be?  Because  to-night  itself,  this  night  of  Kundry  and 
the  Grail,  when  we  would  suppose  the  Sagrada  Montana 
and  that  Bad  Valley  torn  in  its  breast  would  the  more 
paint  my  thoughts,  has  instead,  somehow,  told  me  other- 
wise. Into  that  Kundry  of  mine  went  all  those  thoughts, 
and  there  they  lie,  in  her  strange  exquisite  costume,  so 
to  speak,  for  the  present.  Thus  much  is  my  brain  a 
nicely  adjusting  one.  But  my  own,  what  is  this  part  of 
La  Gran  Via?  It  is  a  beautiful  part  in  many  ways.  My 
life  is  very  blessed  with  much  love — even  from  Daisy, 
indeed ;  even  from  Elise,  I  actually  think,  if  someone  tried 
to  murder  me,  for  instance — she  would  at  least  show  her 
gargoyle  at  my  assailant.  And  it  is  a  life  very  fuU  of 
pretty  colours — colours  of  art,  and  of  elegance,  and  beau- 
tiful harnesses  to  wear  when  I  would  trot  about  to  parties. 
And  best  of  all,  far  best,  it  has  a  calm,  yes,  quite  con- 
stantly, except,  of  course,  in  the  opera  house  where  it  is 
quite  right  I  should  be  a  Vesuvius,  and  except  in  my  little 
book,  where,  right  or  wrong,  I  have  to  be  one ;  a  calm  that 
I  had  touched,  and  been  storing  bit  by  bit  within,  but  that 
came  greatly  with  the  going  from  me  at  last,  through 
God's  touching  me,  in  turn,  upon  the  shoulder,  of  that 
terrible  Trudge  Market  money.  Yet  there  is  something 
wrong,  my  own,  with  this  stretch  of  the  great  road ;  either 
something  wrong,  or  something  lacking,  or  else,  just 
something  that  I  have  not  the  vision  to  understand.  As 
long  ago,  and  as  I  afterward  supposed  never  would  be 
again,  my  mind  seeks — seeks  a  word,  a  name.  That,  if 
I  could  find  it,  for  you  know  how  words  have  been  always 
touchstones  for  me,  my  own,  that  would  vanish  the  clouds. 
Not  that  the  Great  Way  is  clouded.  That  miraculous 
universal  thing  is  clear.  Even  this  part  of  it,  for  have  I 
not  told  you  it  is  colourful?  Why,  it  is  brilliant!  The 
clouds  are  in  me! 

And  shall  I  tell  you  what  I  need?     For  I  know — every 
fibre  in  me  tells  me  what  I  need  at  this  moment  of  the 


292  The  Great  Way 

Way.  My  own,  I  need  Isabel,  my  Isabel  from  whom  I 
ran  away,  and  rightly,  doing  it  as  I  did  in  faith,  utter 
faith,  that  tee  would  be  again,  be  again,  "she  and  I," 
when  it  was  right,  when  it  should  be  God's  choosing,  not 
just  hers,  or  mine.  Have  I  lost  that  faith?  Or  am  I 
just  a  person  who  is  a  little  bit  tired  in  church,  and  not 
a  heretic  ?  I  do  not  know !  I  know  only  that  she  is  what 
I  need,  need — my  Isabel,  my  Sacrament.  She  would 
strengthen  me,  guide  me.  She  would  know,  as  she  saw 
and  knew  that  sacramental  day.  For  there  is  a  definite 
need  of  guidance,  my  own.  There  is  a  definite  thing  that 
I  know  about  and  struggle  with,  and  that  I  have  not  told 
you.  Perhaps,  needing,  and  lacking,  my  Isabel,  some 
guidance  will  come,  some  substitute  guidance,  from  with- 
out or  from  within.  If  from  within,  the  first  step  toward 
it,  my  own,  is  to  urge  it  outward  by  confession  to  you,  to 
see  it  in  words  staring  up  into  my  face.  To-night,  I  can. 
I  shrink  to  do  it,  and  I  must.  I  dare  not,  and  I  will. 
Yes,  presently  I  will  dare. 

But  first,  I  have  not  told  you  quite  the  full  truth  about 
the  bird-seed.  To  do  so  will  help,  will  force  my  pen  in. 
I  said  I  have  gaven  it  by  a  messenger  boy.  I  did  not 
lie,  I  quibbled.  I  even  quibbled  it  into  a  literal  fact,  by 
leaving  out  the  hyphen  from  "messenger-boy."  A  messen- 
ger, yes.  A  boy?  Yes,  to  me,  though  older  than  I  am. 
A  man,  my  own,  and,  such  were  my  purpose  and  subtlety, 
a  beautiful  young  American  caballero,  so  that  if  his  ap- 
pearance is  reported  to  her,  it  is  an  elegant,  aristocratic 
young  gentleman  of  the  kind  she  would  have  adored  to 
subdue,  of  that  splendid  kind  of  American  good-looks  so 
fascinating  to  women.  (As  if  any  kind  of  good-looks, 
except  female  ones,  were  not!)  And  moreover,  my  own, 
a  gentleman  who  is  all  generosity  and  chivalrousness,  who 
would  be  horrified  to  do  such  a  thing  and  would  quite 
likely  have  refused  to ! 

Dear,  I  have  written  in  my  strange  little  book  often 
and  often  of  Arno,  of  my  good  man  friend,  all  kindness, 
all  gentleness,  all  unselfishness;  and  from  these  references 


The  Warm  Shadow  293 

you  must  be  aware — how  I  pathetically  still  write  as  if 
you — as  if  you  had  read! — that  he,  like  Daisy,  and  like 
my  Maestro,  is  a  part  of  my  life,  a  familiar  part. 

Yes,  that  bird-seed  has  driven  me;  the  pen  is  face  to 
face  with  the  matter. 

My  own,  I  have  not  kept  the  deeper  part  of  that  part 
from  my  little  book  to  keep  it  from  you,  but  to  keep  it 
from  myself.  I  have  feared  to  look  too  near  at  what  he 
offered  me.  I  have  feared  myself  and  feared  for  my 
fidelity  to  you,  in  presence  of  the  beauty,  the  peace  and 
the  rest,  which  he  has  held  out  for  me  in  his  generous, 
understanding  hand. 

To  tell  you  of  beautiful  presents  being  held  out  to  me, 
dear,  is  easy!  But  of  my  own  mind  having  had  one  in- 
stant's pause  as  to  this  gift?  Of  that  mind's  confusion? 

Can  I  tell  it  you?  Yes,  to-night  I  can,  with  before 
me  this  loving  present  from  which  I  now  write  to  you,  dear 
tribute  from  a  heart,  meaning  the  heart,  of  that  my 
great  wonderful  Friend  "just  people,"  holding  for  me 
only  the  joy-task  of  simple  taking,  so  different  from  the 
problem-tribute  of  a  dear,  dear  friend;  and  with  aroimd 
me,  somehow,  either  from  Isabel,  or — God  allow  me  the 
thought — from — from  you,  a  feeling  of  love  that  is  near 
me,  close  to  me,  like  some  warm  shadow,  that  seems  to- 
night to  protect  me,  to  somehow  comfort  me,  like  a 
guardian  angel,  yes,  like  the  warm  shadow  of  a  guardian 
angel's  wings. 

Thus  I  can.  And  must,  for  only  so,  as  yet,  can  there 
perhaps  reach  my  seeking  mind  a  little  light.  .  .  . 

And  a  little  light  had  reached,  if  not  the  seeking  mind, 
at  least  through  the  windows  of  the  outer  room,  before 
she  lay  breathing  easily,  peacefully,  in  this  one.  Through 
the  rich  curtains  and  across  the  floor  it  crept  stealthily 
till  it  dispelled  one  shadow  that  had  lain,  like  a  guardian 
angel  though  recumbent  and  asleep,  across  her  closed 
doorway.  With  the  light's  golden-fingered  reaching  of 
it  it  rose,  and  shook  itself  instinctively  and  thoroughly 


294  The  Great  Way 

as  if  it  had  circled  around  several  times  before  lying  down 
there;  looked  at  the  closed  door  listening  cautiously, 
deeply,  tiptoed  to  the  room's  other  door,  and  vanished 
through  it,  to  appear  in  the  lobby  and  to  the  astonishment 
of  the  desk-clerk — pausing  before  that  sleepy  functionary 
with  a  huge  shrug,  graphically  raised  eyebrows,  and  an 
outflung  gesture  of  empty  hands. 

"Cigarette?" 

The  speechless  clerk  handed  him  one  and  the  dishevelled 
shadow,  deeply  inhaling  this  first  instalment  of  breakfast, 
sauntered  into  Fifth  Avenue,  and  happily  down  that  splen- 
did great  silent  way,  whistling  the  Cigarette  Song  from 
La  Gran  Via. 


CHAPTER  XXXII 

THE    MIRACLE    OF    HOSES 

IT  was  still  sharp,  bright  winter  in  New  York,  it  was  still 
a  kind  of  crisp  money-gold  that  came  through  Wanda's 
creamy-fabricked  curtains  in  the  afternoon,  lighting  her 
and  Arnold — such  of  it  as  remained  over,  first  here,  then 
yonder,  from  the  blotting  figure  of  Elise,  who  now  at  this 
window,  then  at  the  other,  and  afterward,  but  never 
finally,  at  this  one  again,  was  absorbedly  busy. 

For  there  was  one  duty  imposed  by  her  song-bird  mis- 
tress that  Elise  positively  enjoyed,  and  that  was  the 
daily  one  of  feeding  the  birds,  resident  or  transient,  of 
whatever  geography  themselves,  birds  of  passage  too,  had 
temporarily  alighted  in — the  birds  who  could  not  sing, 
and  who  as  likely  could  not  easily  get  enough  to  eat.  In 
common  with  so  remarkably  many  women  who  have  no 
discernible  love  for  humanity,  Elise  liked  animals,  and 
especially,  as  exampled  in  the  rich  hideous  Jacquot- 
Jacquette,  any  that  were  either  grotesque  or  very  dainty 
— and  well  exampled,  for  the  wretched  Belgian  was  not  a 
compound  in  name  only,  but  in  these  concrete  qualities 
too.  And  particularly,  Elise  liked  these  cold  little  English 
sparrows  in  New  York,  who  shivered  so  very  like 
Jacquot-Jacquette.  Therefore  this  dutv  dear  to  Madame 
de  1'Etoile's  heart  in  Madame's  list  of  instructions,  a  list 
loose  in  general  and  tight  in  particularities,  Elise  fulfilled, 
and  overfulfilled.  She  would  joyously — as  she  had  done 
just  now — hurl  wide  the  windows  at  any  senseless  hour  to 
crumb  the  sills,  no  matter  what  the  weather,  quite  cheer- 
fully giving  Madame  pneumonia  if  that  chanced  as  an 
incidental ;  just  as  she  would — and  did — as  cheerfully  and 
senselessly  make  exquisite  toast  for  them  which  they  liked 

295 


296  The  Great  Way 

no  better  than  bread,  and  would  really  have  preferred  not 
to  wait  about  for,  though  she  hated  as  the  devil  hates  a 
crucifix  to  make  even  burned  toast  for  the  princess.  In- 
deed, Elise  liked  birds.  She  could  with  delight  have  cut 
Daisy's  throat  when  Wanda  gave  her  that  idiotic  clock, 
and  likely  would  have  done,  had  it  happened  in  France 
where  murderesses  are  applauded;  and  had  Wanda  but 
known  timely  of  this  state  of  mind,  doubtless  Elise  would 
long  before  that  have  got  it. 

Yet  Wanda  and  Arnold  were  alone,  indeed  the  more  so 
from  this  absorbed  presence  of  Elise  as  evidenced  by  the 
gale  intermittently  gusting  on  them,  for  the  very  fact  of 
it  somehow  precipitated  the  courage  he  lacked  when  com- 
pletely solitary  with  her.  And  Wanda  felt  this  and  was 
strangely  nervous. 

She  knew  his  patience.  She  knew  his  willingness  to 
meet  her  every  wish,  her  every  mood.  Yet  as  weeks  had 
passed  with  no  expressed  hint  from  him  of  the  suspense 
that  trembled  through  his  bearing,  lit  his  eyes,  and  crept 
into  his  voice,  she  had  begun  guiltily  to  fear  some  urge, 
some  question,  and  it  did  come  to-day. 

"No,"  she  said,  shaking  her  head  with  lips  pressed 
together  and  eyes  that  avoided  his.  "No,  Arno.  I 
cannot  talk  again  of  it  now.  Did  you  expect  me  to?'* 

*'No — dear."  And  after  a  silence  he  added:  "I'm 
ashamed  of  myself,  Wanda.  I  should  be  thankful  that 
you  promised  even  to  think  of  it.  And  I  ami  thankful. 
Believe  that,  Wanda." 

"Arno,"  she  said  slowly,  "it  is  but  fair  to  tell  you  this. 
That  I  have  thought.  And  that  I  am  as  I  was  in  my 
mind.  I  cannot  see  wrong  from  right.  I  see  and  see 
more  wrong,  and  more  right,  till  I  am  worse  and  worse 
troubled  and  confused,  instead  of  either  the  one  or  the 
other  'more'  helping  me.  Soon,  at  my  New  York  season's 
end,  I  will  be  going  away  to  Paris.  This  dear,  appre- 
ciating Nueva  York  asks  me  to  stay  longer  than  my  con- 
tract, and  my  dear — is  it  now  any  dearer? — Paris  is 
lenient  with  me.  But  I  long  somehow  for  my  springtime 


The  Miracle  of  Roses  297 

in  Paris,  according  my  plan  as  looked  forward  to.  And 
to  be  gone  away  from  you — that  will  help,  perhaps — help 
me  in  my  mind." 

"Wanda,  I  too  will  be  in  Paris." 

"You  insist  upon  going  where  I  go  ?  That  is  not  right 
or  kind — is  not  you!" 

"I  do  not  insist  on  going  where  you  go.  My  sister  has 
asked  me  to  go  over — to  meet  her  fiance." 

"Ah!    Forgive  me!" 

"And  perhaps — perhaps — she  will  meet  mine,  Wanda?" 

"Perhaps,  Arno.  Yes,  I  will  say  perhaps."  She 
looked  at  him  strangely,  a  poignant  glitter  growing,  as 
if  against  much,  then  more,  of  her  will-power,  in  her  eyes. 
"It  is  wicked  for  me  to  say  even  so  slight  a  word  as  that 
'perhaps,'  because  it  is  so  utterly  unlikely !" 

"Not  as  wicked  as  'utterly  no' !"  he  flashed  uncon- 
trollably, uncharacteristically. 

"So  utterly  unlikely,  Arno !  For  the  more  I  think,  the 
more  I  know  the  truth  of  that  great  reason  I  told  you  of — 
that  I — must  it  be  in  trying  words  again,  for  both  sakes  ? 
- — that  I — I  do  not  love  you  that  way.  And  with  you  for- 
giving me  that,  how  selfish  would  I  be,  taking  all  the  good 
and  giving  none,  and  almost  surely  giving  harm! 
Arno -" 

The  distant  sound  of  the  telephone  cut  her  short. 

"Elise,  the  telephone !    Elise !" 

Arnold  had  to  call  this  name  "Elise,"  and  then  both  of 
them  together,  before  the  same  Elise  reluctantly  closed 
the  windows  of  charity  on  the  long  bread-lines  of  British 
poor  standing  outside ;  and  even  then,  as  if  to  put  her  dis- 
temper tangibly  on  record,  she  paused  to  snap  down  the 
shades,  thus  plunging  the  room  in  a  most  disagreeable 
twilight  before  speeding  to  the  noisome  instrument. 

"Let  me  finish,  Arno.  Friend,  I  said  'giving  harm,' 
and  you  know  my  meaning.  That  past  would  rise  up  at 
the  most  cruel  moment,  horrible  and  satirical — somehow. 
Would  it  not?  Is  not  that  life?  Is  not  that  life,  when 
one  has  of  ended  life?  Would  I  not  be  offending  it  again, 


298  The  Great  Way 

if  I — if  I — met  your  wish?  Arno,  you  look  at  all  the 
color-de-rosa  of  life !  Would  there  be  any  colour  of 
roses,  Arno,  when  up  across  the  rosy  sun  steps  some  figure 
that  knew  me  as  I — when  I " 

Elise  reappeared. 

"Madame,  a  Mrs.  Rugg  wishes  to  see  you." 

"Mrs.— who?" 

"Mrs.  Rugg." 

"Tell  them  spell  it !" 

"I  did,  Madame,  and  it  was  Mrs.  Rugg. 
R— u— g— g." 

"Tell — tell  them  send  her  up  at  once !" 

Her  paleness  startled  him  as  he  saw  her  gazing  after 
Elise's  retreating  figure. 

"This  is  someone  you  used  to  know,  Wanda?" 

"Yes,  Arno,  this  shows  exactly  what  I  was  just  now 
speaking  to  you !" 

"Then  why  see  her,  dear?" 

"Because  I  love  her !  Arno,  listen  to  me  quickly !  Do 
not  go  out.  Stay  and  meet  this  lady.  But  I  do  not  know 
like  what  the  meeting  will  be.  So,  ask  me  if  you  shall 
bring  me  some  flowers.  Then  if  I  say  roses,  I  will  mean 
all  is  happy,  so  go  and  do  not  come  back  to-day.  But 
if  I  shall  say  violets — violets  for  an  unhappiness?  But — 
I  cannot  think  enough  quickly — so,  yes,  there  is  another 
way  for  thinking  of  the  violets,  and  if  I  say  violets,  go  for 
a  few  minutes  only.  .  .  .  Only  long  enough  to  bring  them. 
.  .  .  Why  do  I  do  this,  Arno?  Do  you  wonder?  Is  it  a 
silly  melodrama  trick,  of  which  I  have  lately  accused  a 
beautiful  woman  in  my  own  hard,  hard  profession?  You 
can  see,  now,  that  we  never  can  face  the  past,  we  women, 
never !  Not  even  the  kind  and  beautiful  part  of  it !  Will 
you  do  this  silly  thing  for  me?  Will  you  do  what  I 
asked?" 

"Yes,  dear,  yes !" 

"You  see,  I  can  quickly  devise  nothing  more  sensible. 
And  if  there  is  not  that  color-de-rosas  that  I  so  fatally 
spoke,  then,  oh,  then,  it  will  not  be  the  other  for  just  an 


The  Miracle  of  Roses  299 

opposite  sign,  but  it  will  truly  be  violets  that  I  will  need, 
yes,  need,  violets  for  another  memory  of  mine !" 

"Yes,  yes,  dear!"  he  said  again;  and  again  Elise  came 
through  the  doorway. 

"Mrs.  Rugg,  Madame." 

It  was  Dona  Rina ;  but  Dona  Rina  with  such  a  curious, 
unfathomable  difference  that  the  brief  space  of  greeting 
and  of  presenting  Arnold  to  her  old  friend  left  Wanda 
puzzled,  with  chilled  impulses,  and  deeply,  inexpressibly 
hurt.  Though  she  had  met  her  with  eager,  almost 
trembling  hand,  there  had  not  been  so  much  as  a  gleam 
of  warmth  in  the  American's  eyes.  This,  Wanda  assured 
herself,  was  sheer  consideration  for  her;  it  would  have 
been  characteristic  of  Dona  Rina,  she  argued,  to  be  thus 
for  the  opening  moment  even  had  they  met  alone,  to  give 
her  time  and  chance  for  any  role  she  might  wish  to  as- 
sume. Yet  even  with  a  stranger  there,  the  eye  could  tele- 
graph, the  hand  could  be  warm — any  one  of  a  dozen  little 
subtleties  could  be,  between  such  close-brought  friends  as 
these  had  been ;  and  even  in  spite  of  her  own  mad  panic  of 
a  few  moments  ago  she  had  found  herself,  as  her  former 
patroness  entered,  armed  with  all  tools  to  penetrate  any 
formality,  chisel  swiftly  away  any  awkwardness.  And  she 
realized  that  she  not  only  had  not  been  met  half-way,  but 
had  not  been  come  toward  by  a  single  step. 

And  one  more  thing,  material  purely,  photographed 
itself  instantly  and  painfully  on  her  sensibility — Dona 
Rina's  clothes.  Not  that  she  had  fallen  back  into  her  old 
undiscerning  manner  of  wearing  them.  Quite  otherwise, 
all  that  her  strange  maid  in  Paris  had  taught  her  re- 
mained unforgotten,  was  indelibly  there.  It  was  the 
clothes  themselves.  Wanda  could  feel  her  own  soft  silk 
fur-edged  house-gown  literally  biting  at  her  guest's  in- 
expensive "suit" — a  "suit"  worn  with  a  good,  brave  air, 
but  not  so  much  as  tailored — a  suit  out  of  a  shop.  It 
disturbed  her,  worried  her,  and  the  more  so  because  she 
had  received  the  graphic  registration  intuitively  almost 
rather  than  visually — and  so  poignantly  that  ungracious, 


300  The  Great  Way 

almost  unwelcoming  as  she  knew  the  dull  twilight  of  the 
room  to  be,  she  also  knew  that  she  was  actually  comfort- 
ing the  guest  by  not  switching  the  lights  on. 

"I  have  called,  Madame  de  1'Etoile,"  Mrs.  Rugg  had 
explained  briefly,  "to  ask  if,  either  now  or  at  some  more 
convenient  time,  you  would  give  me  an  interview." 

"With — with  much  pleasure!"  stammered  Wanda, 
utterly  at  a  loss. 

"This  afternoon,  I  fear  I'm  interrupting  you.  If  you 
would  make  an  appointment " 

"I  fear  I'm  the  one  that  interrupts  this  afternoon," 
put  in  Arnold,  and  Wanda's  heart  gave  a  doubting  throb 
between  thankfulness  and  regret  for  her  device  and  her 
remembering  cavalier.  "When  you  came,  Mrs.  Rugg,  I 
was  about  to  go  out  for  Madame  de  1'Etoile.  I  must 
attend  to  your  flowers  now,  Wanda,  if  they're  to  be  in 
time  for  you." 

"Oh,  yes,  Arno !  Thank  you !  They  must  be  violets, 
remember — nothing  but  violets  !" 

"I  shall  find  them.  And  you  too,  I  hope,  Mrs.  Rugg, 
when  I  return." 

Wanda  hoped  for  light  when  he  should  be  gone,  but 
none  came.  The  expression  in  the  tired-looking  woman's 
eyes  did  not  change.  Whatever  the  barrier  between  them, 
Wanda  felt  it  to  be  as  adamant  as  what  she  had  intuitively 
divined  to  be  her  old  companion's  new  quality,  new  exter- 
nally if  not  new  in  soul — a  hard,  nearing  to  bitter,  pride. 

"Suppose,  Mrs.  Rugg,  we  make  the  interview  another 
day,  and  this  afternoon  just  'chat,'  and  have  tea?  That 
will  be  pleasant,  yes?" 

"Very,  Madame.    And  thank  you." 

"It  is  here  to  hand,  indeed,  the  right-hand,  you  see! 
And  what  kind  of  interview,  Mrs.  Rugg?  I  do  not  quite 
understand.  You  see,  my  English  is  not  perfect,  clever  as 
I  used  to  think  myself!" 

It  was  as  near  as  she  dared  come,  and  it  brought  no 
response. 

"The  conventional  interview,  Madame.    Your  methods. 


The  Miracle  of  Roses  301 

Your  little  likes  and  dislikes — anything  you  are  willing  to 
tell  of  your  personal  life.  What  are  your  favourite  roles, 
what  your  ambitions.  The  same  old  questions." 

"Ah,  I  see  a  little !"  And  a  very  little  light  had  broken 
upon  Wanda.  "An  interview  for  a  periodico — or  some 
similar  purpose?" 

"Of  course,  Madame!"  It  was  Mrs.  Rugg's  turn  for 
surprise.  "I  am  reporter  for  the  woman's  page  of  the 
Star.  I  supposed  your  maid  had  explained,  for  I  natur- 
ally explained  fully  to  her,  on  the  telephone !" 

"I  begin  to  understand  much!"  exclaimed  Wanda. 
"And  all  of  the  maid  part,  I  understand  and  am  sure 
that  you  can !"  Again  she  drew  daringly  close  through 
the  temptation  of  the  chance  past  subject,  but  with  deep 
caution  from  her  most  recent  discouragement.  "I  am  in 
all  just  such  ways  punished,  you  see,  for  failing  in  memory 
at  the  right  moment,  or  perhaps  quite  disregarding  at 
that  moment,  some  advice  as  to  Frenchwomen  for  maids 
from  a  dear  friend!  Allow  me  confirm  that  good  advice 
now,  Mrs.  Rugg!" 

The  reply  to  this  held  her  nerve-taut. 

"I  do  understand,  and  I  have  proffered  that  advice 
myself,  I  admit,  Madame  de  1'Etoile.  And  I  give  advice 
even  more  nowadays,  but  scarcely  about  ladies'-maids. 
The  column  of  advice  I  give  in  my  paper,  you  see,  is, 
between  ourselves,  rather  for  ladies'-maids,  and  love-lorn 
ladies'-maids,  at  that,  Madame,  than  for  ladies!  Then, 
as  relief  from  it,  I  have,  as  you  see,  these  interviews  with, 
for  instance,  great  opera-singers !" 

For  a  long  instant,  Wanda  was  without  return  of 
words,  as  she  strove  not  to  judge  the  thing,  but  simply 
to  get  away  from  it  into  a  harbour  instead  of  a  quicksand 
of  topic.  So  huge  had  it  been  with  possibilities  of  cruelty, 
whether  fully  intentional  or  but  partly  aware  of  its  iron, 
that  she  by  instinct  refused  to  believe  life  had  done  this 
to  the  woman  before  her,  and  forcing  to  an  end  her  breath- 
less silence  she  said: 

"It  is  a  pleasant  omen  for  our  interview,  that  as  I 


302  The  Great  Way 

chose  'Etoile'  for  my  professional  name,  so  have  you 
chosen  it  for  the  name  of  your  instrument.  You  write 
for  your  Star,  these  pretty  column  matters,  and  your 
interviews  with  singers  and  so  on,  for — for  what  you  call 
your  'fad'?  A  happy  omen — I  the  singer,  you  the  inter- 
viewer, 'del'Etoile'!" 

Dona  Rina  smiled  ruefully.  "'Fad'?  Far  from  it, 
Madame !  I  do  it  to  earn  my  living !" 

The  sad,  strange  little  English  word  "rue"  written  so 
unmistakably  though  so  unconsciously  in  that  smile  had 
swept  away  from  Wanda  all  fear  that  there  was  deliberate 
cruelty  in  this  woman  before  her,  whether  bitterness  in- 
deed were  there  or  not,  and  her  swift  words  were  in  a  help- 
lessly spontaneous  impulsion. 

"Oh,  I  am  so  sorry,  so  sorry !"  she  cried. 

"I — I  am  quite  proud  of  my  profession,  Madame!" 
As  she  spoke,  Mrs.  Rugg  flushed  slowly  and  painfully. 

"Forgive  me!"  cried  Wanda,  wounded  and  flushing 
in  her  turn.  "Believe  me,  I  am  the  happier  on  that  ac- 
count to  give  the  interview.  Let  us  make  it  a  notable  one. 
If  you  will  come  on  Thursday  afternoon  to  the  opera 
house,  I  am  then  rehearsing,  and  you  could  see  and  learn 
much  of  my  work  from  the  rehearsal.  Then  if  you  will 
come  afterwards  here  and  dine  with  me  at  home,  whereat 
I  could  be  leisurely  with  you,  I  can  tell  you  all  of  the  per- 
sonal little  things  and  matters.  So?" 

"You  are  gracious,  Madame,  very,  very  gracious!  It 
will  mean  far  more  to  me  than  you  can  imagine !  I  cannot 
thank  you — not  rightly !"  She  rose  abruptly.  "Your  tea 
was  delicious.  As  you  are  to  give  me  so  much  precious 
time  on  Thursday,  I  will  ask  no  more  now." 

Wanda  too  had  risen,  and  a  strange  incredulous  look 
was  gathering  in  her  eyes  as  the  business-like,  inexpen- 
sively-dressed woman  buttoned  her  small  glove.  As  she 
looked  up  and  met  the  gaze  of  the  diva  with  eyes  still 
unchanged,  and  held  out  the  small  gloved  hand,  Wanda 
sought  swift  courage  for  her  speech.  If  disaster  were  to 
follow  it,  then  disaster;  nothing  could  be  worse  than  the 


The  Miracle  of  Roses  303 

doubting  torture  of  that  ladies'-maids  speech,  unless  simi- 
lar and  subtler  torture  for  hours  on  Thursday.  And  when 
she  took  the  proffered  hand,  she  did  not  release  it. 

"Mrs.  Rugg,  let  me  tell  you  something — something  that 
may  be  quite  ridiculous.  If  it  is,  will  you  forgive  me?" 

"Certainly,  Madame  de  1'Etoile!"  And  Dona  Rina's 
voice  held  a  timbre  of  surprise  made  fully  courteous  by  its 
ingenuousness. 

"My  mind  has  the  strange  thought,  Mrs.  Rugg,  that 
there  has  been  a  very  great  mistake  between  you  and 
me  to-day.  I  cannot  believe  it  possible,  yet  something 
seems  to  say  to  me  that — that  you  do  not  remember  me 
— that — that  you  do  not  know  who  I  am!  Can  I  have 
been  right?" 

And  lifting  one  of  her  hands  from  the  one  she  had  been 
so  firmly  holding,  and  still  held,  Wanda  reached  to  the 
wall  and  flooded  the  room  with  rose  radiance.  They  stood 
looking  long  into  each  other's  eyes,  a  vague  mystification 
that  had  been  in  Dona  Rina's  slowly  growing  into  doubt- 
ing joy  and  amazement — the  dark  eyes  very  big,  her  face 
quite  white. 

"You — you  are  not " 

"Yes !"  cried  Wanda.  "Yes  I  am,  Dona  Rina !"  And 
with  one  mutual  cry  they  were  in  each  other's  arms. 

A  few  moments  later  they  were  seated  again,  opposite 
each  other,  their  chairs  drawn  near  together,  their  hands 
clasped. 

"Then  I  am  so — so  very  different,  Dona  Rina?" 

"You  wonder — you — you  miracle!  And  I  may  call  you, 
as  in  the  old  days " 

"Call  me  Wanda,  dear,  if  you  will.  The  other  is  so 
long  dead,  I — I — Do  you  object  to  Wanda?" 

"Whatever  you  like — Wanda.  Though  I  will  think 
you  in  Spanish,  and  I  fear  every  time,  you  being  now 
only  more  you!  Dear,  dear  Wanda,  I  can't  believe  yet! 
I  see  the  miracle  before  me,  finished  and  identified,  and 
can't  yet  believe  what  you've  done — truly,  truly  as  I 
believed  in  you  always!  To  think,  I  have  actually  seen 


304  The  Great  Way 

you  and  heard  you  several  times,  and  have  never  sus- 
pected! And  not  that  I  ever  forgot  you,  dear.  Perhaps 
it  is  partly  because  the  opera  for  me  nowadays  means  the, 
gallery,  or  no  opera — and  in  spite  of  my  'Etoile,'  too, 
for  there  are  no  press  tickets  for  newspaper-men  of  my 
kind,  unless  I  were  willing  to  go  through  a  bull-fight  for 
them !  And  I  haven't  had  this  fortunate  Star  thing  long 
enough  to  do  that  with  safety  anyway.  And  I  was  think- 
ing of  you  especially  when  I  got  it,  and  had  to  choose  a 
name — of  you  and  of  opera,  dear,  and  what  you  said  that 
strange,  sadly  beautiful  day  in  the  Place  de  1'Opera 
about  finding  a  name  pretty  enough  if  circumstances  were ! 
Well,  you  have  found  your  right  one,  dear,  dear  Wanda, 
and  mine,  if  you  and  I  may  not  enjoy  it,  will  probably 
please  that  fateful  maid  of  yours,  if  she  knows  a  word 
or  two  of  English!  It  is  Betsy  Bliss!  So,  actually  I 
have  sat  up  there  at  the  opera  listening  to  you,  watching 
you,  and  thinking,  'Oh,  if  only  that  could  be  my  dear 
little  maid,  my  dear  little  strange  genius!  Where  is  she? 
How  is  she?  Was  I  right,  was  I  strong,  to  allow  her 
right,  for  all  her  noble  strength,  that  terrible  Paris 
night?'  And  it  was  my  dear  little  maid,  all  the  time! 
— oh,  my  dear,  my  dear,  what  must  you  have  thought  at 
what  I  said  about  ladies'-maids — love-lorn  ladies'-maids? 
Why  did  you  tolerate  me  here  one  instant  more?  Because 
it  was  you — you:  sweet! — Wanda,  it  passes  belief,  this 
thing  that  you've  done!  For  not  only  does  a  new  soul 
shine  from  your  eyes,  but — beautiful?  My  dear,  you  were 
pretty,  God  knows,  the  prettiest  thing  I  ever  saw.  But 
now — but  you  know  what  you  are !" 

"Yes,"  said  Wanda,  through  her  tears.  "But  with 

it  all,  you  know  what  I  w But  Dona  Rina's  hand 

went  swiftly,  imperiously  across  her  mouth. 

"Well,  well,  but  I  am  of  no  importance,  Dona  Rina, 
when  I  find  out  that  you  are  poor,  you!  It  is  my  turn 
for  how?  And  why?  How  can  it  be?" 

"Simply  enough,  dear.  The  world  is  that  way.  You 
said  as  much,  the  first  night  we  knew  each  other!  As 


The  Miracle  of  Roses  305 

it  chose  to  happen  in  my  case,  all  my  money  was  in  stocks, 
and  one  day  they  went,  that's  all.  The  only  particular 
how  of  such  cases,  dear,  is  that  they're  over  at  three 
o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  precisely,  instead  of  some  in- 
definite hour  of  the  day  or  night,  as  might  be  in  some 
other  form  of  the  same  thing.  Nothing  is  truly  safe  in 
this  world — no  money  thing.  The  only  way  one  could  be 
safe  would  be  to  have  so  much  money,  in  so  many  different 
things,  that  the  world  itself  would  have  to  end  to  end 
them  all!" 

"But,  Dona  Rina,  /  am  rich  now.  So  rich  as  I  think 
you  never  were,  though  of  course  I  do  not  know.  And 
between  such  friends " 

Wanda  had  launched  plunging  into  her  words,  for  the 
best  wave-away  possible  of  the  history  she  daringly  hoped 
to  submerge,  but  it  rose  inevitably  before  her  with  all  the 
strength  of  Dona  Rina's  intrinsic  philosophical  rights 
added  to  that  of  its  own  indelible  facts  like  a  thus  doubly 
sturdy  breakwater. 

"No,  Wanda,  no."  And  quiet  and  firm  as  the  words 
Dona  Rina's  hands  grew  gently  tighter  on  Wanda's. 
"Dear,  do  you  remember  when  you  had  to  start  in  to 
work,  and  I  begged  you  to  let  me  help?  That  terrible 
Paris  night  I've  already  spoken  of?  Of  course  you  re- 
member! And  would  you  let  me?  And  did  I  press  you? 
No,  I  understood.  So  it  must  be  now.  It  is  life.  It  is 
what  you  used  to  call  reverently,  almost  sacredly,  La 
Via — La  Gran  Via.  And  also,  it  is  turn  and  turn  about." 

"Oh!"  cried  Wanda,  helpless,  indeed  a  vessel  in 
distress,  awash  in  its  own  tears.  "Could  I  ever  have 
known  you  would  say  the  same  words  to  me — just  those 
few — 'No.  La  Gran  Via'!  Dear,  dear  Dona  Rina,  it 
is  not  quite  the  same !  I  was  used  to  poverty,  a  comrade 
of  it,  you  have  never  been !  I  was  beginning  early — a 
very  girl!  For  all  your  prettiness,  dear,  you  are  not! 
And  I  had  that — that  terrible  debt  to — to  Society  to  pay, 
that  one  must  pay  quite  alone,  and  you " 

"Wanda  dear,  everyone  has  some  such  debt  to  pay. 


306  The  Great  Way 

You  may  have  been  solitary  in  your  payment  of  it,  unique, 
in  your  own  wonderful  manner  of  regarding  it  and  doing 
it;  but  alone?  Again  that  word:  no.  Every  member  of 
Society  has  dues  to  pay,  some  in  one  form,  some  another, 
according  to  different  rulings — a  generous,  general  rule 
that  makes  Society  the  big,  sweeping  association  that  it  is. 
Do  you  remember  we  discussed  this,  in  a  way — in  the 
little  park  under  the  Pont  Neuf — and  I  told  you  I  had 
never  found  out  what  my  debt  was?  It  was  the  simple 
debt  of  labour.  And  I  am  paying  it  now." 

"Oh,  Dona  Rina,  you  are  right,  I  suppose!  But — 
promise  me  you  are  not  just  paying  me  back  the  debt  of 
my  own  words?" 

"Dear,  certainly  I  am  not.  I  never  could  pay  you 
back  for  them,  for  they've  sustained  me,  after  teaching 
me.  Only  in  loving  you  I  can  pay  back,  perhaps.  And 
Wanda — the  mantones  that  you  made  me  keep — you 
remember?" 

"Yes,  yes?" 

"That  lesson  you  taught  deeply  too — I  accepted  it, 
when  the  time  came,  as  a  simple  gospel  like  the  other. 
I  clung  to  them  till  I  had  nothing  else.  Then  I  sold  them." 

"I  am  glad!    And  they  brought  you  something?" 

"A  sum  that  took  my  breath  away — and  kept  it  in  my 
body!  Wanda,  I  never  would  have  permitted  it  at  the 
time  if  I  had  known  even  approximately !  And  the  candle- 
sticks, dear?  I  couldn't — after  I  realized  about  the 
shawls,  I'd  have  kept  the  candlesticks  to  light  up  my  coffin, 
rather!" 

"Oh,  I  am  so  glad!"  cried  Wanda.  "Not  about  the 
coffin,  dear,  but  about  the  mantones — and  they  have 
brought  a  thought  to  me,  Dona  Rina.  We  will  talk  no 
more  of  money.  I  will  grant  you  to  be  perhaps  as  right 
about  that  as  I  was  long  ago.  But  a  little  personal  thing. 
In  a  short  time  I  go  away  for  my  Paris  season.  My 
dear,  I  am  downloaded  with  things  I  might  never  wear. 
Would  you  let  me  give  you  a  trunkf ul  of  my  clothes  ?" 

Dona  Rina  searched  her  eyes  in  silence  for  a  moment. 


The  Miracle  of  Roses  307 

"Yes,  my  dear,  willingly  and  gladly,"  she  said. 

"Oh,  I  am  glad!  Remember,  you  have  promised! 
Would  you  take  two  trunks?" 

"No." 

"Three?" 

Dona  Rina  laughed.  "You  have  made  me  a  Cata- 
Ionian  bargainer !  One  and  a  half !" 

"Very  well.  But  you  have  reached  a  poor  agreement, 
for  I  promise  you  in  clothes  I  am  very,  very  extravagant ! 
And  I  have  a  beautiful  plan,  Dona  Rina!  You  shall  be 
with  me  often,  often,  which  would  be  anyway,  but  much, 
and  I  will  have  in  a  modiste,  and  we  will  have  it  all  done 
here  at  home — and  with  chat?  Dio,  what  chat! — It  is 
arranged !  Ah,  my  dear,  let  us  look  at  some  of  my  dresses 
now!  And  this  or  that — whatso  you  might  fancy — you 
would  say  so,  no?" 

And  half  laughing,  half  weeping,  she  dragged  her  into 
her  bedroom,  arbitrary  as  in  their  strange  Parisian  days, 
and  threw  open  the  doors  of  closets  crammed  with  wonder- 
ful garments.  .  .  . 

When  they  came  again  into  the  drawing-room,  Elise 
was  entering  it. 

"Mr.  Rutgers  has  returned,  Madame.  Shall  he  come 
in?" 

"Ask  him  wait  a  very  few  moments.  I  will  call."  She 
turned  to  Dona  Rina  hastily.  "Heart's  friend,  one  of 
my  heart's  very  dearest  friends,  believe  me  or  not,  God 
sent  you  this  moment  again  into  my  Gran  Via  to  help 
me  to  do  right.  There  was  another  guidance  my  heart 
cried  out  for — a — a  matter  of  violets.  I  have  tried  to 
have  faith  that  in  its  place  some  guidance  would  be,  and 
now  has  God  sent  to  me  a — a  matter  of  roses.  We  are 
to  be  much  together,  and  afterward,  all  this  you  can 
understand.  But  for  to-day — this  moment — this  little: 
Dona  Rina,  you  will  see — you  will  see  Mr.  Rutgers  often 
here.  Study  him.  Study  his  goodness,  his  generosity, 
his — his  gentlehood,  Dona  Rina.  And  then,  knowing  me 


308  The  Great  Way 

as  you  know  me,  for  what  I — was,  help  me  to  decide 
whether — whether ' 

Dona  Rina,  searching  her  face,  grasped  her  hands 
tight,  suddenly. 

"Providing  he  is  all  you  say — and  I  can  trust  you  there 
— whether  to  accept  that  happiness  in  life?  Oh,  Wanda, 
you  have  paid  your  debt !  And  you  re-pay  it,  every  time 
you  sing!  If  that  would  be  happiness  to  you,  dear,  or 
even  just  calm  content,  take  it,  take  it !" 

"Study  him,  Dona  Rina,  and  his  good  nature — which 
does  not  mean  in  English  what  7  mean  by  it  in  my  hastened 
English  now!  Yes,  make  that  study,  dear,  before  you 
say  so !  I  have  been  honest  with  him — as  honest  as  he 
will  allow,  which  I  think  in  my  judgment  of  this  matter 
has  been  a  fully  right  amount  of  honesty.  But  study  it, 
study  over  him,  before  you  say  so.  Then  help  me,  help 
me!" 

She  went  to  the  door  and  called  "Arno  !" 

He  came  in  with  a  great  silver-twisted  mass  of  purple 
violets. 

"She  is  still  here,  Arno,  as  you  hoped.  And  they 
might  have  been  roses,  Arno,  after  all !"  Exquisitely 
laughing,  she  disclosed  their  stagecraft  to  Dona  Rina. 
"So,  Arno,  it  is  color-de-rosa,  and  thus  much,  I  was  wrong 
in  our  talk !  Yes,  it  is  a  Miracle  of  Roses !"  And  her 
cheeks  took  on  a  little  of  the  spoken  colour  as  she  met  his 
eyes  with  the  phrase.  "Yes,  a  true  miracle  indeed,  when 
roses  grow  from  violets — your  violets,  my  dear!"  And 
with  both  hands  she  held  them  toward  her  friend. 

"Ah,  how  I  must  have — have  bewildered  you,  Wanda, 
those  first  few  minutes !"  cried  that  friend,  holding  them 
tenderly  close.  "Hurt  you,  if  only  the  word  could  have 
any  Spanish  politeness  thus  wrong-side-out!  And  Mr. 
Rutgers,  you  too  knew  that  I  was  an  old  friend,  when  I 
did  not  know  it  myself!  How  strange  an  old  friend  you 
must  have  thought  me !" 

"Shall  I  go  for  roses  now?"  he  asked. 

"It  is  my  turn  at  errand-boy,"  she  smiled  back,  "and 


The  Miracle  of  Roses  309 

I  take  my  turn  on  the  spot.  For  I  leave  with  you  the 
most  beautiful  rose  in  the  world !" 

They  were  standing,  for  Dona  Rina  had  once  more 
risen  to  go.  Wanda,  with  a  sudden  recollection,  caught 
her  hand  to  detain  her. 

"Dona,  I  forgot  to  tell  you!  I  am  living  now  with 
what  a  pretty,  amusing  little  friend — of  whom  I  am  so 
fond  and  who  occupies  here  with  me.  And  you  will  meet 
her— 

This  was  proven  very  strictly  true,  for  a  door  slammed 
loudly,  a  warm  gust  of  fabrics  breezed  through  the  hall- 
way and  into  the  room,  and  little  Daisy,  heroic-scaled  of 
hat  and  sables,  was  upon  them. 

In  the  following  swift  moment  of  introduction  she  was 
not  the  flower,  but  the  alighting  butterfly — in  its  breath- 
less interval  of  poise,  a  poise  through  whose  perfect  mask 
her  eyes,  in  comprehending  Mrs.  Rugg,  listed  two  things 
with  underscore  that  she  did  not  like — "the  cut  of  her 
jib,"  according  to  the  item  as  she  afterward  read  it  aloud; 
and  the  hand  affectionately  clasping  Wanda's.  But  with 
her  manner  clothed,  as  it  were,  in  the  long  trained  velvet 
habit  of  amenity,  she  instantly  covered  the  stranger's 
meagreness  of  outfit  within  her  gates  as  by  the  unlimited 
mantle  of  her  own  gorgeousness,  and  smiled  upon  her  as 
though  she  had  loved  her,  instead  of  hated  her,  at  first 
sight. 

"Wanda,"  said  Dona  Rina  a  moment  later,  "you 
mustn't  go  with  me  to  your  door.  But  perhaps  your  very 
sweet  friend  will?" 

The  Apostolic  Greco-Russian  princess  was  thoroughly 
startled  at  having  a  courtesy  suggested  to  her,  in- 
genuously as  it  had  been;  but  she  smiled  again  like  a 
cluster  of  cupids  and  led  Mrs.  Rugg  with  gracefully  flut- 
tering pomp  through  the  corridor. 

It  was  evident  that  the  two  conversed  before  sunder- 
ing, from  the  length  of  time  that  she  was  gone.  It  was 
more  evident  when  she  arrived  back  on  the  threshold  of 
the  room,  her  eyes  blazing. 


310  The  Great  Way 

-  "Wanda,  what's  the  matter  with  that  woman?  Is 
she  crazy?  She  gave  me  a  lecture  in  the  hall  as  if  she 
owned  you!  To  the  edification  of  the  elevator  boy,  she 
desired  me  to  appreciate  you !  Me  appreciate  you!  She 
wanted  me  to  be  good  to  you  and  helpful,  and  to  value 
your  friendship!  If  she's  one  of  those  astounding  souls 
that  mean  well,  she  did  teach  me  one  thing  that  I  never 
did  appreciate  before,  and  that  is  the  meaning  of  the  word 
impertinence!  Why,  Wanda,  she  had  an  air  of  positive 
proprietorship  of  you !" 

Wanda  knew  that  Dona  Rina  had  not  said — would 
not  have  been  allowed  by  either  her  instincts  or  her  life- 
habits  to  say — these  tactless  and  hapless  things;  knew 
definitely  as  had  she  heard  it  that  her  friend  had  made  to 
her  friend,  in  waiting  for  the  lift,  some  comment  as 
gracious  and  as  graceful  as  that  fair  speech  to  Arnold 
about  the  rose  of  the  world.  But  she  knew  also  that 
Daisy  was  not  a  liar,  that  she  merely  had  heard  the  words, 
whatever  they  were,  in  the  large  type  and  with  the 
plenteous  astonishment-marks  of  "The  Apples  of  Jacquot- 
Jacquette"  or,  nay,  "A  Modest  Passion";  and  she  was 
thoughtfully  aware,  too,  that  weeks  of  Doiia  Rina's  visits 
lay  before  them,  and  that  there  were  horns  to  be  seized 
now,  at  once,  or  else  a  shattered  china-shop  to  be  got 
through  afterward.  Therefore,  though  her  own  speciality 
in  life  was  singing,  having  more  than  Dona  Rina's 
temerity  she  conjured  the  bull-fight  before  her  as  well  as 
she  could,  and  thus  was  silent  for  a  long  moment,  hesitant, 
then  determined,  as  she  replied  quietly: 

"No  one  at  present  in  my  life  has  a  greater  right  to 
such  an  air." 

"Wanda!"  The  hurt  little  princess  fell  limply  into  a 
chair,  her  butterfly  wings  aflop  like  bandarillas.  "This 
from  you  to  me!" 

The  queer  little  occasional  something  happened  to 
Wanda's  eye-brows  as  she  glanced  at  Arnold,  and  her 
hands  went  out  from  her  sides  in  a  helpless  little  gesture. 

"People!       People!"    her    lips     silently     formed,     re- 


The  Miracle  of  Roses  311 

signedly.  And  she  disappeared  into  her  bedroom,  leaving 
Daisy  to  spring  from  her  chair  and  run  to  Arnold,  forget- 
ful for  once  of  her  jealousy  there,  and  seizing  him  con- 
vulsively by  the  arm,  to  burst  into  unstately,  familiar 
tears  upon  his  shoulder. 

And  Arnold,  with  something  of  the  tenderness  that 
came  automatically,  like  an  exhalation  called  forth  by  one 
specific  direction,  from  him  to  Wanda — indeed,  with  much 
of  it,  as  if  this  associate  receptacle  for  it  were  a  legitimate 
and  rightly  provided  one — and  with  all  of  the  fine  and 
waxless  gravity  of  the  elderly  youthful,  comforted  her; 
petting  and  indulging  and  excuselessly  ruining  the  already 
damaged  little  royalty  as  if  she  had  been  entirely  the  small 
child  that  she  largely  was. 


CHAPTER  XXXIII 

THE    LITTLE    RED    BOOK    IS    POSTED 

PARIS !    Again  Paris !    Once  more  Paris ! 

And  I  write  to  you,  my  darling,  from  a  sacred  spot. 
I  have  came  to  the  Normandy,  in  the  rue  de  PEchelle,  and 
by  good  fortune  was  enabled  to  have  what  my  sentiment 
desired,  the  rooms  in  which  I  lived  here  with  Dona  Rina, 
and  from  which  I  went  out  to  begin  over  again  my  Gran 
Via.  I  am  alone  herein  now,  quite  alone — the  more  so,  in 
an  impolite  sense,  from  Elise  being  with  me.  How  great, 
how  strange,  the  change  between  then  and  this,  in  my 
whole  life !  Yet  in  spirit,  Dona  Rina  is  here  with  me. 

I  have  told  you,  dear,  how  she  came  again  into  my 
life,  and  of  how  very  altered  had  been  hers  in  that  same 
interim — (interim  is  a  new  word  I  have  just  discovered 
for  me  on  board  the  ship) — as  changed,  the  other  way 
about,  as  I  have  just  said  was  my  own.  Nor  must  I 
pause  at  that  use  there  (with  such  a  little  gulp  as  I  am 
controlling)  of  my  dearest,  my  most  sacred  expression, 
for  that  sad  fact  about  Dona  Rina  has  brought  about 
some  new  changes  in  my  life.  And  when  I  called  that 
life  "my  own,"  was  I  not  right,  after  all?  Are  not  you 
my  life?  Are  you  not?  But — Foremost  (another  nauti- 
cal discovery!)  foremost,  and  I  must  needs  to  smile  be- 
tween tears  as  I  write  it,  Daisy  has  left  me.  Absolutely 
left  me,  Jose  Luis,  abandoning  the  steamer  we  have  months 
ago  engaged  for  together,  and  barking  a  week  before  me. 
(Something  wrong,  but  I  am  hasty,  I  am  troubled,  and 
together  upon  all  I  sing  to-night.)  And  all  this  from 
little  Daisy,  my  pretty-petalled  little  Marguerite,  on 
account  of  Dona  Rina.  She  would  not  understand.  Noth- 

312 


The  Little  Red  Book  is  Posted        313 

ing  could  make  her  understand.  Dona  Rina  in  those  re- 
maining weeks  was  much  with  me  at  our  rooms,  and 
Daisy  was  polite.  Polite  so  as  to  grieve  one.  Then  when 
Dona  Rina  would  go,  tears,  anger,  resentment.  At  last 
our  modiste  matters  ended  matters.  She  said  all  that  was 
not  "dress-making,"  a  word  she  had  herself  taught  me  for 
it,  that  it  was  instead  "too  much,"  which  seems  in  English 
to  mean  not  alone  de  trap,  but  something  more  extrava- 
gant. She  could  not  contain  it  in  her  disposition,  and  in 
a  rage  she  sails  for  here,  nor  has  she  written  to  me  nor 
has  she  been  to  see  me.  I  believe  her  intention  is  to 
reside  here  and  go  once  more  into  French  society — as 
much,  I  suppose,  as  she  can  without  a  husband.  So  much 
I  judge  from  the  Herald.  The  French  papers  are  more 
strict — they  do  not  mention  her. 

But  my  darling,  line  by  line  I  put  away,  and  put  away, 
what  I  must  tell  you,  and  which  trembles  my  pen  as  I 
write.  .  .  .  Let  me  then  plunge  in,  my  own,  as  into  a  new 
role  of  which,  when  the  last  moment  and  the  actual  mo- 
ment of  the  orchestra  demand,  despite  all  my  protests  that 
I  am  not  afraid,  I  am  afraid.  .  .  . 

My  own,  my  darling  (how  I  hesitate,  and  how  I  turn, 
desperately,  to  that  beautiful  English  word!)  a  great, 
great  difference  has  taken  place  in  my  mind,  and  I  talk  to 
you  for  the  last  time — for  the  last  time,  to  you,  my  breath 
of  life,  my  Jose  Luis,  my  own. 

I  have  wondered,  tormented  myself,  how  I  would  tell 
to  you  what  has  taken  place,  for  "taken  place"  is  right 
for  this  thing  which  is  a  matter  of  but  my  mind,  not  my 
heart,  so  that  I  did  not  say,  in  my  pitiful  guilty  con- 
science, taken  place  in  me.  And  now,  after  all,  it  is 
already  told,  and  in  that  one  sentence  that  I  wrote,  you 
know.  "You  know" !  Oh,  oh,  pitiably,  how  pathetically, 
I  still  write  as  if  you  had  read,  as  if  you  were  to  read! 
Well,  it  tells  how  near  has  been  your  presence  in  my  soul, 
my  own !  And  to  me,  with  that  one  sentence  you  know, 
you  who  are  never  to  know ! 

It  was  not  because  I  found  the  name  for  that  part— 


314  The  Great  Way 

this  part,  ending  to-night — of  the  Great  Way,  my  own. 
A  word  I  found,  yes :  Quandary.  Quicksand.  Quicksand 
is  better,  no,  not  better,  nearer;  but  it  was  not  quick,  it 
was  slow  torture.  Perhaps  I  will  one  day  find  out  from 
some  better  knowing  of  English  that  Quicksand  was  right 
indeed.  But  it  remains  that  no  name  did  I  find,  a  name 
like  Epiphany,  and  Wilderness,  and  Valle  Malo.  Only 
that  word,  quandary.  And  so  it  stayed  to  the  end,  the 
end  of  my  dear  Nueva  York,  in  every  other  wise  so 
strangely,  queerly  beautiful — quandary.  Even  with  the 
telling  of  it  to  you,  from  within,  even  with  lovely  Dona 
Rina,  from  without,  as  if  God  had  sent  her  to  me  in  my 
need  in  place  of  my  beautiful  Isabel,  so  it  stayed. 
Quandary. 

And  this,  despite  I  will  confess  that  all  that  became 
mine  in  vision  from  Dona  Rina,  was  of  nature  to  sway  me 
toward  just  what  has  taken  place  with  me ;  quandary  still, 
despite  that,  in  my  very  fear  that  too  much  did  she  con- 
sider it  right,  through  her  love  for  me,  I  struggled  against 
her. 

And  then  on  the  ocean,  on  my  solitary,  empty  voyage 
across,  a  lonely  space  in  the  Gran  Via,  because  my  dear, 
dear  Maestro  is  afraid  of  large  fishes  and  monster- 
disasters  and  stays  shut  tight  away  below,  having  been 
left  by  little  Daisy,  having  left  Dona  Rina,  with  time  and 
space — wonderful,  calm  space — in  which  to  think,  I  fell 
victim,  my  own,  my  Jose,  to  that  picture  of  peace  and 
rest — and — and  love,  love  gaven  beautifully,  undemand- 
ing. I  saw  the  great  waters  stretching  away,  I  saw  the 
vastness  of  distance,  the  magnitude  of  distance  and  of 
chance,  I  saw  the  magnitude  of  shipwreck  in  solitude,  and 
these  matters  came  upon  my  mind  and  entered  it — the 
vastness  of  your  distance  from  me,  my  own,  my  beloved; 
the  safety  from  chance  and  from  shipwreck  in  the  harbour 
of  the  love  he  offers  me.  I  began  even  to  think,  "Is  The 
Other  right — is  it  right,  in  the  presence  of  this  that  God 
and  Arno  offer  me  in  fulsomeness?"  .  .  . 

God  forgive  me,  I  turn  from  you — from  my  own — to 


The  Little  Red  Book  is  Posted        315 

him!  In  what  way  will  the  past  spring  up  to  blight  him 
and  me?  Can  it  in  any  way?  For  I  have  been  honest! 
And  he  has  answered  always,  "I  am  not  afraid.  If  it 
should  come,  I  would  face  it  for  both."  Then  if  he  does 
not  fear,  need  I?  Need  I  fear  for  him,  for  us,  him  and  me? 

So  at  last  I  have  told  myself,  "Perhaps  this  is  what 
the  gitana  could  not  see.  Perhaps  this  is  what  was 
meant.  I  will." 

I  have  not  yet  told  him.  He  has  reached  Paris  to-day, 
to  see  his  little  sister  and  to  know  her  fiance.  He  brings 
that  little  sister  here  soon,  before  the  Opera.  And  I  will 
have  this  news  for  him. 

How  I  dread  that  little  sister,  lest  she  instantly  read 
me !  Yet  there  I  know  I  am  a  coward,  and  a  very  wrong 
coward.  I  have  thought  much  of  all  that,  and  I  am  sure, 
sure  that  I  do  not  wrong  her.  Yet  strangely  I  could  wish 
that  she  and  this  meeting  were  not  for  to-night. 

It  is  with  a  curious  calm,  after  all,  something  of  that 
ocean-calm,  that  I  have  told  you,  Jose  Luis.  The  words 
have  seemed  cold  to  me  as  the  pen  made  them.  Yet  the 
pen  shakes,  my  own ;  I  can  promise  you,  that  my  heart 
pounds  in  a  smothered  way,  crying  out  to  me  its 
reproaches  at  what  I  do  to  it.  ... 

I  must  tell  you  that  last  night,  what  without  even  little 
Daisy  to  throw  books  at  me,  I  was  so  lonely  that  I  made 
my  will,  trying  to  school  myself  away  from  some  of  the 
notorious  temperament  and  carelessness  of  opera-singers, 
according  some  papers  and  teachings  of  attorneys,  and 
having  told  you  of  dear  Dona  Rina's  sudden  poverty,  now 
I  can  tell  you  that  if  anything  should  happen  to  me,  such 
as  a  cyclone  (if  or  that  same  calm  ocean  spoke  of  cyclones 
too,  till  I  could  not  but  sympathize  my  poor  darling 
Maestro  somewhat)  then  Dona  Rina  would  be  suddenly 
wealthy  again.  I  have  told  you  that  in  spirit  she  was 
with  me  here.  Let  me  tell  you  that  night  before  last,  was 
my  opening  at  the  Opera.  I  sang  Mimi.  The  first  time 
I  ever  heard  Mimi,  was  here  at  the  Paris  Opera  .  .  .  and 
with  Dona  Rina.  .  .  .  Has  my  little  red  book  after  book 


316  The  Great  Way 

told  of  that  night,  you  who  are  never  to  read?  Dio !  .  .  . 
And  now,  the  Opera  was  sold  out  on  my  account — mine! 
...  so  that  I  knew  I  was  to  be  greatly  welcomed.  Yet  in 
my  loneliness  I  dreaded  it.  From  Daisy,  not  a  word,  not  a 
flower.  I  told  myself  over,  over :  "Dona  Rina  is  with  me ! 
Dona  Rina  is  with  me !"  All  the  first  act  I  said  it ;  and 
then,  to  my  dressing-room  a  cablegram  is  brought  to  me: 
"I  am  with  you.  Rina."  How  right  I  had  been !  And  poor 
Dona  Rina,  with  her  little,  little  salary.  To  her,  a  cable- 
gram must  have  been  very — oh,  exceedingly — expensive! 

But  my  own,  my  eye  has  glanced  the  clock,  and  it  creeps 
toward  the  Opera. 

And  before  that — ah,  before  even  that,  my  darling,  it 
creeps  through  the  moments  left  to  you  and  me!  At  any 
minute  now,  they  may  be  here — Arno,  and  his  little,  happy 
sister,  who  may  not  be  quite  so  happy  if  she  reads  into  my 
soul — that  soul  that  I  have  so  daringly  declared  was  en- 
tirely new!  Her  name  is  Mary — the  pretty  English 
"Mary,"  to  my  ear,  whether  from  musicalness  or  from 
prejudice,  so  much  prettier  than  Marie  or  our  own  Maria. 
If  she  is  as  sweet — as  simple — as  her  name,  surely,  surely 
I  need  not  be  so  frightened  of  her ! 

My  own,  how  much  there  can  be  in  a  name !  As  long 
as  I  shall  live,  I  shall  have  a  strange — no,  never  that 
word ! — a  sweet,  a  heavy  feeling,  yes,  sweet  and  heavy 
both,  like  the  scent  of  violets,  through  my  heart  at  sight 
or  sound  of  "Jose  Luis."  Have  you  liked,  I  wonder,  my 
own  chosen  name,  Jose  Luis?  The  de  1'Etoile,  was  for 
aspiration ;  aspiration  with  a  memory-tint  of  Cadiz  and  of 
Isabel — starlight.  And  the  Wanda — well,  for  euphony, 
for  I  had  to  have  a  pretty  name;  while  partly,  in  my 
strange  love  of  words,  though  you  might,  might  indeed 
of  necessity,  smile  at  it  if  you  knew  me  to  be  telling  you 
this,  dear — partly,  for  the  meaning  of  the  word,  as  I  then 
thought  to  be,  in  English — for  my  long,  long  journey,  my 
Gran  Via,  my  wandering.  For  I  knew  a  little  English 
then,  that  dangerous  thing  a  little,  just  enough  not  to 
know  the  right  difference  when  I  chose  it,  my  own. 


The  Little  Red  Book  is  Posted        317 

Ah,  how  I  love  you,  Jose  Luis !  How  I  will  always, 
always  love  you !  And  how  late  for  me  to  tell  you  again, 
as  I  am  coming  to  the  moment  of  sending  them,  these  my 
poor,  poor  little  red  book,  to  little  Daisy,  my  little  angry 
Princess !  Perhaps  they  will  return  her  to  me  in  a  flood 
of  tears,  a  whirling,  a  stormy  version  of  that  silver  shower 
I  have  spoken  you;  and  perhaps  she  will  just  quietly 
read  .  .  .  and  think  ...  as  one  would  do,  perhaps,  on 
receiving  a  legacy — again,  a  silver  shower!  .  .  . 

.  .  .  As  you,  my  own,  will  never,  now,  read  and  think! 
.  .  .  Ah,  my  own,  my  Jose,  I  love  you!  Do  you  remem- 
ber, I  wonder,  how  there  was  always  a  special  tenderness 
in  my  meaning  when  I  would  say  but  "Jose"  instead  of 
"Jose  Luis?"  I  used  then  to  wonder  if  you  knew.  .  .  . 
I  love  you !  I  love  you !  .  .  .  And  you  are  never  to  know ! 
You  are  never  to  know,  more  than  you  knew  tlien!  .  .  . 
Elise,  dear,  is  answering  the  telephone.  Perhaps  they  are 
already  here,  my  own !  .  .  . 

Elise  was  crossing  the  room  to  her. 
"Mr.  Rutgers,  Madame,  and  Miss  Rutgers." 
"Send  word  I  will  go  down  in  a  few  moments,  Elise." 
Wanda  took  up  her  pen  bravely,  but  it  scratched  waver- 
ingly,  awkwardly  across  the  page. 

Yes,  it  is  they,  waiting  for  me.  For  the  last  time, 
to-night  it  will  be  for  you  that  I  sing,  my  darling!  And 
how  I  will  sing !  Believe  that !  It  is  Traviata.  .  .  .  To 
you,  for  the  last  time.  To  my  own,  for  the  last  time. 
How  I  will  sing!  After  this  it  will  be  for — my  new  life. 
For — my  husband.  .  .  . 

Good-bye,  good-bye,  my  beloved,  my  violet-eyed,  my 
own !  Good-bye,  my  Jose  Luis,  you  who  are  never  to 
read  my  little  red  book,  in  which  my  red  heart  cries  to 
you !  I  post  it  to  the  little  princess.  .  .  .  Good-bye ! 

I  turn  from  you  to  those  who  await  me,  representing 


318  The  Great  Way 

my  via  nueva — who  know  me  only   as  Wanda,  Wanda 

of  the  stars.    I  turn  to  them  from  you 

After  I  have  to  you,  O  my  dream  of  God, 
Signed  myself 

DULCE  DE  L'ETOILE. 

The  pen  dropped  to  the  desk  with  a  sharp,  unaccus- 
tomed little  clatter.  Resolutely,  she  drew  from  their 
small  case  the  preceding  little  books,  resolutely  placed 
them,  with  their  latest  comrade,  in  a  heavy  linen  en- 
velope, directed  it.  Resolutely  she  brought  out  her  jewel- 
box,  closed  together  the  intricate  little  travelling-desk, 
handed  the  jewel-box  and  her  little  keys  to  Elise.  Resolu- 
tion failed  only  at  actual  sealing  of  the  strong,  long 
envelope.  She  knew  that  even  in  this  it  would  not  fail, 
downstairs.  She  stood  with  it  held  shut  in  her  hand,  her 
lips,  tremulous  a  little,  compressing  to  firmness  as  her 
fingers  increased  their  pressure. 

"Elise,  make  me  the  favour  to  give  me  my  rosary." 

"Oui,  Madame." 

With  a  little  breath  sharply  indrawn,  she  took  from 
Elise's  capably  prompt  hand  and  placed  around  her  neck 
the  delicately  sumptuous  cord  of  gold  and  crystals  with 
its  minutely  carven  emblem  of  sacrifice. 

"Have  you  my  cloak?" 

"Oui,  Madame." 

They  hurried  through  the  corridor  and  into  the  lift. 
Below,  in  the  long  brilliant  entrance-hall  of  the  hotel  she 
walked  swiftly  to  the  desk  without  glancing  toward  the 
reception  room. 

"Give  me  a  messenger,  please,  to  carry  a  letter  for 
me." 

"Certainly,  Madame!"  The  response  in  English, 
with  an  English  timbre,  for  the  clerk  was  a  Londoner, 
sent  a  sick  little  pain  through  her  heart.  She  knew 
telepathically  that  this  youth  knew  she  was  in  pain,  and 
for  better  strength  she  did  not  meet  his  eyes.  "Come 
this  way,  boy !"  She  walked  toward  the  reception  room. 


The  Little  Red  Book  is  Posted        319 

the  messenger  at  her  side,  her  eyes  still  tensely  lowered. 
Before  the  two  steps  leading  up  to  the  little  room  she 
halted. 

"Read  carefully  this  address!"  She  was  holding  the 
big  envelope  before  him,  not  releasing  it.  "The  letter 
is  valuable.  Take  a  cab.  Give  it  only  into  the  hands 
of  Madame  la  Princesse  herself.  If  she  is  from  home  and 
you  are  not  allowed  to  wait,  return  it  to  me  at  the  Opera. 
I  am  Madame " 

"de  PEtoile,  distinguee  du  monde,  Madame !" 

"Thanks.  Give  it  to  no  one  but  myself  or  my  maid. 
There  will  be  instructions  at  the  Opera.  You  know  my 
maid,  here?  You  understand?" 

She  nodded  toward  where  Elise  hovered  with  her 
wraps  in  the  background. 

"She  will  give  you  cab  money.  You  understand  per- 
fectly?" 

"Oui — oui  Madame!" 

She  lifted  the  envelope  toward  her  lips,  the  crude 
process  of  so  sealing  it  a  stored-up  excuse  for  a  final, 
a  stealthy  caress,  but  her  gesture  changed. 

"Wait!    You  have  a  pencil?    Quick!     Thanks." 

She  opened  back  the  flap  and  scrawled  hastily, 
tremblingly  across  the  inner  side  of  it. 

"Once  more,  once  more,  good-bye,  my  own!  I  can 
see  the  two  standing  there,  watching  me,  waiting  for  me 
to  come.  It  is  over!  I  turn  from  You!  Good-bye! 
Good-bye !" 

She  sealed  it,  handed  it  back  to  the  boy,  felt  him  van- 
ish. Then  her  body,  almost  automatically,  took  its  first 
step  on  toward  the  little  reception  room,  toward  the  two 
lives,  the  new  life,  patiently  waiting  to  receive  her  there. 
But  she  paused  again. 

The  years  that  had  been  hers,  playing  upon  a  swift 
instinct  of  her  whole  being  and  nature,  bade  her  drink 
in  one  more,  a  last,  deep  draught  of  them,  one  long 
instant,  while  those  years  yet  were  actually  hers,  before 
the  threshold,  and  before  its  crossing.  And  in  impulse 


320  The  Great  Way 

of  self-protection,  of  armament,  as  it  were,  against  the 
first  moments  of  spiritual  ache  and  need  that  would  in- 
evitably be,  and  perhaps  swoop  down  inevitably  soon, 
after  her  deliberate  tread  into  the  cold,  new  waters  of  a 
life  strange  to  her  whole  life  as  heart  of  a  hemisphere  to 
heart  of  a  hemisphere,  she  sent  her  glance  unseeingly 
past  the  little  room  and  let  her  gaze,  as  for  her  final,  full- 
breathing  time-flash  of  soaring  liberty,  dwell  slowly  along 
the  wide  corridor  of  the  hotel.  In  the  consuming  eyes 
was  a  great  wistfulness — the  thing  that  had  stirred  pity 
in  the  chance  desk-clerk,  and  betrayed  it  into  his  voice 
— and  of  which  she  was  quite  unconscious  again  now,  for 
she  was  thinking  herself  strong.  And  basically,  she  was 
strong,  for  it  was  almost  immediately  to  the  forgetfulness, 
will-powered  forgetfulness  for  the  brief  moment,  of  her 
awaiting  guests  that,  with  the  poignant  look  leaving  her 
gazing  eyes,  her  thoughts  centred,  for  that  purposefully 
seized  instant  of  mental  adventure,  upon  the  bit  of  life- 
gossamer  that  was  happening  to  drift  through  the  Nor- 
mandy lobby  as  she  turned. 

The  picture,  chance  or  destined,  might  not,  indeed, 
have  deserved  the  world's  very  greatest  eye  in  its  owner's 
greatest  moment — that,  for  instance,  of  an  Empress  when 
about  to  sign  the  declaration  of  a  devastating  war  or  a 
merciful  peace.  But  that  of  the  very  great  singing 
actress,  in  her  thus-far  greatest  moment,  it  did  deserve, 
and  also  her  immediately  lavished  thought  upon  it,  sim- 
ply because  of  the  native  texture  of  her  minutely  appre- 
ciative, swiftly  assimilating  mind,  for  this  t able aus-viv ant 
was  frailly,  beautifully  odd.  It  was  ugly,  it  was  exquisite, 
and  it  was  extraordinarily  sweet  in  its  grotesqu£rie. 

A  short  round  lady,  followed  by  a  starchy  maid,  very 
much  as  Madame  de  1'Etoile  herself  was  rearguarded  by 
Elise,  was  progressing  from  the  desk,  where  she  had  just 
made  a  rowdy  rumpus  over  a  completely  foolish  some- 
thing-nothing, toward  the  lift,  with  such  naughty  oaths, 
in  the  rough  English  tongue,  as  "Saucy,"  and  "Never 
again,"  and  "Listen  to  me,"  addressed,  presumably,  to  a 


The  Little  Red  Book  is  Posted        321 

vision,  floating  before  her,  of  the  villain-hearted  Desk 
Clerk  from  whom  she  had  just  now  swept  away. 

Despite  this  public  show  of  untranquil  spirits,  she  was 
unmistakably  one  whose  like,  as  the  fair  Duchesse  de 
Noailles  has  said,  God  Almighty  would  think  twice  before 
condemning — namely,  a  person  of  quality.  Her  figure 
was  erect,  with  its  posture  not  undeservedly  haughty,  and 
with  something  rightly  impressive  in  all  its  low  and 
curving  lines,  in  spite  of  her  indifference — or  perhaps  her 
inclination,  even — to  her  effect  upon  the  casual  standers 
and  sitters  about.  Perhaps  this  was  itself  a  sign  of 
station.  Her  walk  was  emphasized  and  energetic,  though 
not  swift,  because  of  the  size  and  arrangement  of  her 
person.  It  looked  like  something  made  by  an  amateur, 
with  plenty  of  material,  tactlessly  disposed;  yet  her  con- 
duct of  it  was  assured  and  stately.  Alongside  the  enor- 
mous round  ostrich-plumed  queenly  hat  slanting  over  her 
profile,  her  face,  an  enamelled  net-work  like  a  piece  of  lace 
under  glass,  was  pinker  than  any  other  face  near  by. 
She  was  an  essential,  an  apt  thumbnail  comment  upon  the 
Heart  of  the  Great  World:  upon  Paris. 

But  the  sum  total  of  her  was  of  small  import  in  the 
light  of  her  luggage;  for  held  forth  in  front  of  her  on  a 
level  with  her  angry  bosom,  with  a  nice  posture  of  her 
plump  little  fingers,  she  was  carrying  a  quite  large  and 
very  lovely  birdcage.  It  was  not  of  modern  gilded  kind, 
but  was  made  of  slender  sticks,  or  of  reeds,  or  wicker, 
and  was  round,  and  conically  topped,  and  placid  and 
charming,  and  suggested  England,  and  a  rose-trellised 
haystack,  and  pure  poor  girls  named  Amy  Ames  by  the 
poet  Laketalk.  And  in  the  cage  was  a  treasure  possibly 
unique,  and  anyway  delicate,  poetic,  precious. 

It  was  a  pair  of  parakeets ;  and  their  wondrous  beauty, 
so  singular  that  it  lifted  above  the  exotic,  was  as  in- 
stantaneously arresting,  and  in  its  appeal  as  refined  and 
as  primitive,  both,  and  as  irresistible,  as  a  spray  of  moss- 
rosebuds  with  their  minareting  leaves,  or  an  old-fashioned 
filigree  valentine. 


322  The  Great  Way 

The  spiritual  effect  of  the  two  parakeets,  through  the 
sense  of  sight  and  its  action  upon  the  imagination,  was 
indefinable  in  its  thrill — elusive,  confusing.  But  the 
means  of  their  unescapable  effect  of  aesthetics  were  static 
and  tangible  and  swiftly  known:  their  colours,  which 
were  at  once  most  definite  and  most  conservative.  It  was 
their  wealth  of  these,  perhaps,  together  with  the  fine 
natures  of  the  various  hues,  and  the  unprecedented  com- 
binations of  the  opposed  yet  juxtaposed  styles,  that  made 
these  parakeets  almost  ineffable.  They  were  rich,  and 
they  were  startling,  without  any  brilliance  whatever. 
They  were  neither  large  nor  small,  but  approximately  on 
the  scale  of  tanagers ;  and  this  medium  size  prevented  their 
being  flagrant,  like  the  great  parrot-prides  of  public 
gardens,  whose  looks  shriek  like  their  voices,  yet  also 
gave  happier  leeway  to  the  delicious  painting  of  their 
habits  than  would  have  done  the  measure  of  the  little 
slaves  that  tell  fortunes  for  twopenny  idiots  in  the  streets. 
Their  design  was  simply  rings,  or  circular  stripes,  like 
that  of  any  other  parakeets  that  are  designed  at  all;  but 
where  the  average  parakeet  is  almost  all  over  a  plain 
vivid  green,  with  a  contrasting  headdress  and  perhaps 
necklace,  these  fascinating  creatures  bore  a  numerous 
succession  of  other  than  green  colours,  in  widths  sym- 
metrically marked,  some  broad,  some  narrow,  from  head 
to  tail — wherein,  in  a  few  of  the  stiff,  down-pointing 
feathers,  was  their  only  green,  as  if  here  alone  they  chose 
to  display  the  conventional  basis  of  their  uniform  (they 
were  quite  alike,  like  soldiers);  and  even  here  the  trite 
green  was  obscured  by  other  feathers  of  heavy  red  and 
yellow.  This  last  fact  would  have  had  them  from  the 
United  States ;  yet  their  heads  and  shoulders,  and  the 
colour  next,  were  a  soft,  dull,  soothing  red  and  a  soft  dull 
blue,  as  if  instead  they  were  the  unparalleled  Rosella- 
bird;  and  after  that,  carefully  interlined  with  strips  of 
dove-toned  gray  and  heavier  cordings  than  this  of  the 
favourite  blue,  were  many  circlets,  properly  formed  as 
bracelets,  of  divers  suavely  graded  shades  of  colours  of 


The  Little  Red  Book  is  Posted        323 

roses,  as  if  their  native  place  were  India.  A  curving  little 
plume  apiece,  one  inch  in  length,  curled  piquingly  back- 
ward from  the  head,  and  was  lavender-tinted. 

Even  with  their  beauty  so  prison-striped  over  as  it 
was  by  the  bars  of  the  cage,  the  sight  of  them  was  ador- 
able, and  not  the  least  devastated  by  their  cries,  which 
they  sent  angrily  forth  by  infection  from  the  lady,  using 
all  their  small  bitter  voices  sharply  and  tartly,  as  if  they 
saw  before  them,  too,  the  vision  of  the  Clerk,  and  were 
helping  her  screech  at  its  black,  black  wickedness.  Of 
course  they  did  not  and  were  not;  as  birds  are  the  most 
unintellectual  of  all  supposedly  intelligent  creatures,  next 
to  fishes.  But  opposite  to  fishes,  they  are  sensitive,  and 
the  parakeets,  by  dint  of  vocal  nerve-centres,  were  in  full 
sympathy  with  their  mistress,  so  that  if  that  Clerk  had 
a  conscience  in  the  matter,  their  noises  must  have  racked 
him.  These  were  to  the  effect  in  general,  though  not 
specifically,  that  God  Almighty  certainly  would  not  have 
had  to  think  twice  before  condemning  that  person,  while 
the  details  were  of  a  more  worldly  tenor.  In  a  voice  of 
tinkling  metal  she  was  saying  "Saucy"  again,  and 
"Leave  to-morrow,"  and  the  parakeets  repeated  these  in 
the  noise  named  "squawk":  "LEE—EE—VE!"  "TO- 
MORROW!" 

To  the  curious  among  the  people  by,  it  would  have 
been  a  pleasure  to  learn  what  the  big  see-saw  was  about — 
whether  her  dinner  or  a  lost  diadem.  But  she  did  not 
seem  one  to  be  approached  by  strangers.  She  even  said 
"Outrageous !"  now,  and  the  parakeets  said,  as  best  they 
could,  "OUTRAGEOUS!" 

Then,  suddenly,  as  they  quite  neared  the  lift,  her 
passion  changed  its  nature.  Having  by  accident  lowered 
her  eyes  a  little,  and  thus  abruptly  seen  her  parakeets,  and 
totally  forgetful  of  the  Clerk,  with  her  free  hand  she 
hurled  wide  their  prison  door,  and  bade  them  out  with  a 
lingeringly  dulcet,  loudly  ecstatic  cry  to  them: 

"O-o-o-oh,  my  ravishers!" 

She  probably  did  not  know  what  ravishers  meant  (for 


324  The  Great  Way 

there  was  nothing  in  her  appearance  to  suggest  that 
she  did,  from  experience).  But  her  cry,  at  that,  was  con- 
spicuous. Folk  were  staring — and  some  of  them,  more  at 
her  than  at  her  parakeets.  But  Madame  de  1'Etoile's 
absorbed  and  absorbing  look  was  not  a  stare — it  was  of 
the  nature,  still,  of  an  earnest,  deep  and  trenchant,  preg- 
nant gaze.  There  had  come  to  her,  at  first  sight  and 
sound  of  the  distinguished  lady,  a  tantalizing  reminder 
of  someone  else,  its  full  reminiscence  seemingly  ungrasp- 
able ;  then  her  struggle  for  it  had  ceased  as  she  had  seen 
the  dainty  rarity  in  the  cage,  and  another  cell  of  memory 
had  been  stirred  instead,  and,  swiftly,  its  full  vision  had 
leapt  within  her — a  vision  of  quiet  poppy  fields  at  evening, 
of  a  little  white  house  on  the  highway  of  a  hillside,  of  a 
tender  woman,  and  of  a  strange  company  of  many  little 
birds.  And  then,  as  if  upon  the  strength  of  this,  the  first 
matter  of  memory  recurred  and  crystallized.  It  was  the 
tenderly  beautiful  parakeets  that  had  recalled  the  tender 
woman,  and  a  little  hill-town.  But  what  their  great  lady 
of  indignant  importance  had  been  like,  was  an  angry 
diva  ...  in  a  little  sunlit  street  ...  in  a  little  sunlit 
seaport.  .  .  . 

At  her  rapturous  summons,  the  rainbow  twain  had 
fluttered  forth  and  upward,  thus  giving  to  such  sight  as 
was  engaged  upon  them  their  full  romance  of  beauty,  and 
made  an  ethereal,  tinted  hovering  in  the  air,  over  the  top 
of  the  cage,  whereupon  they  descended,  and  with  little 
shiverings,  and  little  sounds  and  little  bites,  perched  and 
wooed. 

Nodding  her  head  and  mammoth  hat  at  them,  the  lady 
stepped  onward;  and  all  four,  the  matron  (if  she  were 
one),  and  the  maid,  and  the  paramour  parakeets,  went 
into  the  lift. 

A  thought  of  the  woman  who  stood  gazing  at  its  shut 
door  was  that  it  was  carrying,  in  the  direction  of  God,  a 
being  of  the  Animal  Kingdom,  yet  who  considered  herself 
apart  from  it,  above  it;  who  was  indeed  a  type,  perhaps 
a  symbol,  of  highest  civilization,  and  yet  who  represented 


The  Little  Red  Book  is  Posted        325 

in  herself  the  essence  of  all  that  was  untrue  and  un- 
natural ;  and  with  her,  two  little  creatures  of  most  humble 
place  in  that  despised  animal  estate,  yet  that  represented 
much,  very  much,  if  as  certainly  not  all,  that  was  natural 
and  beautiful. 

The  tiny  miracle  of  casual  life,  fragile  and  diminutive 
and  esoteric  as  a  small  leaf  in  a  big  wind,  had  used  but 
a  few  short  seconds.  The  lively  picture  was  as  if  it  had 
never  been  painted;  and  Madame  de  1'Etoile  knew  that 
she  must  think  of  another  matter.  The  two  patiently 
waiting  figures  so  brief  a  distance  from  her  reclaimed  her 
eyes,  as  her  thoughts. 

With  head  suddenly  erect,  a  smile  gathering  for  the 
girl  upon  her  lips,  she  went  up  the  carpeted  little  steps 
into  the  pretty  room  and  across  to  them. 

She  gave  a  hand  to  Arnold,  with  a  swift,  fleeting  look 
of  silent  welcome;  then  she  looked  down  into  the  flower- 
like  face  of  the  expectant  girl  and  took  both  of  her  hands 
in  a  warm,  gentle  clasp. 

"Ah,  my  dear,  you  are  your  brother's  sister!  How 
pretty !  How  pretty !"  Her  heart  was  so  rapid,  her 
effort  to  keep  its  throb  from  her  voice  so  tense  in  its 
achievement,  that  she  could  not  hear  what  the  girl  was 
murmuring.  Gracefully,  she  leant  and  kissed  her  fore- 
head. Arnold  was  speaking  now — words  that  also  had  no 
distinct  meaning  for  her,  and  still  clasping  the  delicate 
fingers  that  had  clung  to  hers  she  turned  to  him  with  a 
lifted  hand,  an  irresistible  deprecant  smile. 

"Forgive  me,  Arno!  To-night  I  am  all  engaged  with 
your  pretty  sister !" 

She  turned  again  to  the  girl,  and  drew  her  away, 
gently  but  swiftly,  to  a  small  couch  across  the  room. 

"My  dear,"  she  said,  "there  must  be  a  little  word  be- 
tween you  and  me  at  once.  There  has  been  something  on 
our  minds,  my  dear,  yours  and  mine,  has  there  not?  And 
I  desire  to  take  that  burden  from  yours  now,  quickly.  I 
am  not  going  to  marry  your  brother." 


CHAPTER  XXXIV 

THE    GREAT    WAYWARD    ONE 

THE  startled  girl  tried  to  speak,  but  failed,  and  merely 
gazed  at  her  confusedly. 

"Say  nothing,  my  dear.  We  will  know  each  other 
better,  for  your  brother  is  a  devoted  and  dear  friend  to 
me.  And  that  is  all.  And  therefore  we  can  talk  some 
other  time,  at  leisure.  But  so  much  it  was  right  for  you 
to  know  as  soon  as  possible.  For  the  thought  must  have 
troubled  you — the  idea  of  an — an  opera-singer  for  a 
brother's  wife  Be  relieved,  my  dear." 

Again  she  kissed  her,  and  to  prevent  an  answer  moved 
back  with  her  toward  Arnold. 

"Friends,  I  must  leave  you  now.  You  will  pardon  me? 
It  is  later  than  I  knew." 

"But  Wanda !"  exclaimed  Arnold.  "May  we  not  take 
you?  We  had  hoped ' 

She  interrupted  him  gently.  "I  had  intended,  Arno, 
that  you  should  drive  with  me  in  my  car.  It  is  waiting. 
But  I  find  myself  nervous  to-night.  A  singer  must  be 
allowed  temperament,  moods,  no?  You  will  forgive  me?" 

"Yes,  yes,  Wanda!  But  are  we  not  to  see  you  again? 
After  the  opera?" 

"Of  course!  Call  for  me!  I  had  most  expected  it — 
and  you  will  not  disappoint  me?" 

She  saw  his  own  disappointment  vanish  from  his  eyes 
— less  perhaps  at  her  words  than  at  their  feeding  on  some- 
thing in  her  costume  to  which  they  were  drawn  and  re- 
drawn. She  realized  that  it  was  the  rosary,  realized  with 
sudden  poignancy  the  deep  and  planned  significance  to 
him  of  her  wearing  it.  ...  And  its  mysteries  for  him 

326 


The  Great  Wayward  One  327 

were  to  be  sorrowful,  not  joyful.  .  .  .  Would  they  one 
day  through  the  slow  miracle  of  sheer  nature  turn 
glorious  in  those  kind,  those  feeding  eyes?  .  .  .  She 
spoke  hurriedly. 

"And — oh — Arno,  do  not  be  troubled  that  the  per- 
formance will  be  late.  To-night,  it  seems,  I  need  one 
half  an  hour.  I  wish  to  give  a  very  fine  performance, 
and  you  remember  my  habit  to  concentrate  at  the  last 
moment  in  my  car — when  I  have  indulged  myself  in  ner- 
vousness !  Indeed,  I  know  you  will  vouch  me  to  your 
sister,  that  I  am  not  very  temperamental — yet  we  will 
confess  to  her  how  Daisy's  tantrum  kept  that  proud  New 
York  Metropolitan  audience  waiting  more  than  a  half 
hour !  Ah,  of  what  we  will  talk  at  supper,  to  your  sister !" 

She  was  still  holding  Mary's  arm  in  hers.  She  released 
it,  touched  swiftly,  with  delicate  finger-tips,  the  delicate 
azalea  cheek.  She  held  out  the  hand  to  Arnold.  She  was 
gone.  .  .  . 

She  leaned  back  in  the  car  with  a  relaxation  of  her 
whole  taut  body;  Elise,  intuitive  and  uneasy,  fidgeting 
beside  her,  and  waiting  for  her  instructions  for  the 
machine.  It  had  not  moved:  in  Madame  de  PEtoile's 
very  brief  but  also  very  adamant  code  of  instructions  for 
her  employed,  the  car  never  did  move,  until  her  direction 
came  (with  Elise  much  in  the  role,  as  it  were,  of  a  tele- 
phone) formally  as  if  she  were  quite  likely,  any  evening, 
to  say  "Dalmatia"  instead  of  "The  Opera  House."  And, 
after  a  few  brief  seconds  emerging  crisply  from  her 
collapse-like  inertia,  she  said  something  quite  as  startling 
as  Dalmatia  now. 

"Hotel  Richelieu,  rue  de  PEtoile,  Elise." 

Reasons  aside  from  thoughts  of  Dona  Rina,  and  prom- 
inently its  adjacence  to  the  Opera,  had  led  Wanda  to  the 
Normandy;  Daisy  for  temporary  hearthstone  had  chosen 
the  small  Richelieu,  with  its  daintiness,  its  charm  of  little 
street,  its  creamy  flavour  and  its  quiet — not  from  real 
appetite,  for  she  enjoyed  noise  and  splendour  in  hotels, 


328  The  Great  Way 

but  from  tastefulness,  as  inherent  a  feature  of  her  as  her 
nose  or  nosegay. 

Bewildered  by  her  mistress's  queer  pronouncement, 
Elise  was  staring  at  her. 

"Mais /     Madame /" 

"Do  as  I  tell,  Elise !" 

Elise  did  as  had  been  told;  and  the  surprised  hesita- 
tion of  the  chauffeur  was  turned  in  turn  upon  Elise.  But 
Elise  had  heard  the  great  singer's  voice,  which  she  knew 
better  than  the  public  did  because  she  dealt  with  its  speak- 
ing character;  and  by  dint  of  eyes  not  repetition  she 
proved  capable  with  the  machine-god.  They  shot  curvet- 
ing into  the  Place  Palais  Royal  instead  of  up  the  Avenue 
de  1'Opera. 

Still  Elise  did  not  trust  her  great  lady's  mood. 

"Surely  Madame  sings  to-night?  Madame  she  knows 
the  hour?" 

"Make  me  the  favour  to  be  hushed,  Elise !" 

Elise  made  the  favour  to  be  hushed;  and  not  because 
the  voice  had  been  unkind,  for  it  had  not  been.  Rather 
it  was  electrical  with  excitement,  the  excitement  of  a 
vividly  potential  being  in  a  moment  of  conscious  business 
with  Destiny,  and  that  had  upon  the  alert  servant  an 
effect  of  scare.  And  Elise  gulped,  with  a  sudden,  miscel- 
laneous remark  that  was  just  possibly  not  a  lie. 

"I  am  very  fond  of  you,  Madame !" 

"You  ought  to  be,"  said  Wanda. 

Neither  was  this  speech  unkind,  for  only  intention  can 
qualify  swift  actions,  and  her  single  purpose  had  been  to 
vocalize  something  that  would  put  a  stop  to  Elise's 
earnest  building  of  herself  into  a  superlative  nuisance  that 
would  have  to  be  cast  untimely  forth  from  its  situation, 
or  even  from  the  car.  It  had  sped  on  through  the  big, 
foggily  graceful  stone  memories  of  Marie  Antoinette  and 
with  lightning  eventuality  into  the  Champs-Elysees, 
epitome  of  Parisian  night  in  its  light  and  length;  lamp- 
strung  and  lovely. 

"L'Arc  de  Triomphe  de  VEtotie!" 


The  Great  Wayward  One  329 

The  words — in  her  deep  and  arbitrary  love  of  words — 
phrased  themselves  to  her  with  a  suggestion,  curiously 
never  thought  of  by  her  until  now,  of  significance  because 
of  her  own  chosen  name,  and  she  turned  to  the  window, 
with  nervous  force  dislodged  and  lowered  it,  and  peered 
out. 

Distant,  dim  and  small,  just  a  smudge  on  the  night, 
larger,  larger,  dim  but  less  dim,  greyer,  the  triumphant 
Arch  of  the  Star  was  rushing  toward  her. 

Her  action  had  been  as  impulsive  as  if  the  thing  would 
have  a  message  for  her ;  and  it  did. 

They  were  close  upon  it  now;  not  very  close.  And 
somewhere  in  its  loved  familiar  lines  there  was  something 
alien  to  her  memories  of  it.  Rather  it  had  in  this  fact 
a  quality  of  dream,  thus  abruptly  recurrent,  as  swiftly 
escaping;  and  she  sat  back  in  the  car  with  knitted  brows. 

For  the  third  time  to-night,  and  in  a  distance  of  but 
few  minutes  only,  though  indeed  minutes  of  so  innumer- 
able thoughts,  memory  in  its  special  sense  had  stirred 
within  her — and  stirred  her;  and  this  time,  as  upon  the 
first,  with  tantalization — in  this  instance,  with  its  pi- 
quing quality  infiltrated  with  the  grey  colour  of  shadow ; 
of  the  spectral,  the  haunting,  the  yearning.  To  reach  the 
diagonal  little  rue  de  1'Etoile  running  sidewise  out  of  the 
Star  they  were  to  pass  through  the.  arch,  and  it  must  be 
looming  at  them  now;  not  yet  upon  them  quite.  Swiftly, 
she  leaned  again  from  the  window. 

It  was  in  no  real  interest  in  an  unusual  aspect  of  the 
great  monument,  but  in  the  driven-human  instinct,  tanta- 
mount to  impulsion,  that  sends  the  mind  in  hot  hunt  of 
the  thought  that  evades  it.  And  she  leaned  now  far  out 
of  the  car,  gazing  up  and  ahead,  and  more  and  more 
having  to  lift  back  her  eyes,  at  the  blue-green  inky  sky 
and  the  softly  grey  arch  daubed  meltingly  against  it. 

Again,  Paris  held  for  disclosure  to  hers  or  to  other 
passing  and  chance-attentive  eyes  a  scrap  of  its  incal- 
culable odd  straws  of  humanity,  mood  and  conduct.  The 
queer  something  about  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  was  a  figure 


330  The  Great  Way 

upon  its  top,  stilly  postured,  vivid  as  a  symbol,  statuesque, 
yet  unmistakably  stranger  to  the  stone,  indubitably 
human.  And  it  was  desolate,  in  its  impression,  too;  a 
ripe  thing  as  an  opposite,  in  her  hyper-keen  perceptions 
of  to-night,  to  the  sort-etching  of  the  wide  and  low  figure 
of  the  angry  lady  of  the  parakeets — flotsam  of  Paris, 
as  she — possibly ! — jetsam.  As  a  very  modelling  of  Soli- 
tude in  the  whirling,  lit  metropolis  it  stood  there,  a  thing 
of  the  mists,  as  high  and  lonely  as  a  loon ;  and  those 
grey  mists,  that  may  have  been  an  effect  more  of  the 
great  grey  arch  than  of  the  night,  unlocked  her  vision 
to  the  sought  thought:  turning  themselves,  those  mists, 
to  murk,  and  the  warm  nightlights  to  the  twilights  of  raw 
dawn.  Mentally,  she  was  seated  not  in  a  luxurious  vehicle, 
but  in  a  scow  besmirched  in  the  bank  of  a  dry  riverbed, 
gnawing  the  husks  of  devoured  emotion  in  strangle,  hard- 
passioned  words;  and  in  the  darkness  of  the  car,  Elise's 
cloak-shrouded  figure  was  not  that  of  her  paid  hireling, 
but  of  a  servant  of  God's  House — a  nun.  .  .  .  She  had 
turned  toward  Elise,  drawino-  in  and  away  from  the  vision 
of  mist  that  had  turned  brown  in  her  eyes  .  .  .  browner 
than  the  waltz  that  had  led  to  all  the  mist-dissipating  light 
— for  a  little  while — of  her  life.  So  thick  and  real 
spiritually  was  the  heaviness  about  her  that  no  start  save 
of  pain  could  have  come  from  her  had  Elise  leaned 
through  it  and  said,  "Look !  There  on  the  bank !  .  .  . 
Tell  me,  is  the  tall  fine  shape  like  him?"  But  her  thoughts 
at  the  captured  memory  did  not  stay  sombre:  even  as  she 
had  impulsively  drawn  back  from  it,  the  strangely  situated 
figure  high  above  her  had  proven  itself  beyond  all  question 
human,  for  its  arms  had  moved,  suddenly,  as  if  even  des- 
perately, out  and  upward,  and  her  last  second  of  her 
totally  short  glimpse  of  it  had  carven  it  in  her  mind  as  a 
thing  of  immense  and  lonesome  aspiration.  And  swift  to 
read  into  special  meanings  for  herself  every  chance  un- 
usualness  of  to-night  she  caught  it  to  her  soul  as  a  further 
writing  on  her  high,  arduous  wall.  .  .  .  "Yes,  yes,  I  am 
not  alone  alone!  I  have  seen  another  soul  that  craves 


The  Great  Wayward  One  331 

and  reaches  forth  prayerfully  m  the  desert  with  its  hungry 
hands!" 

The  great  arch  had  swept  around  them,  rushed  back 
of  them.  With  all  her  rich  penetrating  love  and  wide 
meandering  knowledge  of  Paris,  she  had  not  known  that 
one  might  go  to  the  top  of  the  Arc  de  Triomphe.  To 
gain  permission  for  such  an  ascendant  pilgrimage  at 
night,  what  an  ardour  of  purpose  must  have  possessed 
that  searching  soul  that  she  imaginatively  felt  to  be  so 
kindred,  in  its  solitude,  to  her  own!  .  .  .  Abruptly  she 
turned  from  her  gazing  into  the  light-dotted  darkness. 

"Indeed,  Elise,  you  must  excuse  me.  In  my  nervous- 
ness, I  was  but  safeguarding  a  large  spiritual  emergency 
when  I  have  said  that  comment  to  you." 

"Oui,  Madame,"  said  Elise. 

"Anyway,  I  have  but  told  you  the  truth  with  it,  and 
the  truth  is  the  great  thing  that  everybody  should  look 
at  forever.  To  go  on  telling  it,  you  were  also  right  to 
be  worried  about  the  Opera.  My  plan  at  the  hotel  was 
to  send  you  there  at  once  to  say  I  am  delayed  one  half 
an  hour,  but  this  matter  of  the  truth  filled  my  mind  to 
carelessness.  As  it  is,  you  can  go  from  the  Richelieu, 
and  in  the  car,  and  the  management  will  have  become  just 
properly  anxious.  At  my  first  appearance  in  opera, 
Elise,  I  made  the  management  most  improperly  anxious — 
you  should  have  heard  them,  or  rather,  you  should  not ! — 
and  I  gave  a  great  performance — you  should  have  heard 
me,  too!  Well,  I  shall  give  a  great  performance  to- 
night !" 

The  swiftly  running  speech  came  to  a  stop  with  the 
car;  but  below  its  graphic  atmosphere  she  painted  as 
rapid  a  predella  from 'step  and  sidewalk. 

"Go  very  fast,  and  by  the  Boulevard  Haussmann. 
Send  back  the  car — instantly.  .  .  .  And  be  prepared  for 
a  tidal-wave  when  I  have  came!  Tell  them  exactly  one 
half  an  hour's  delay.  I  will  have  been  three-quarters 
total  sum,  yet  I  am  truthful — we  will  save  one  quarter 
by  a  putting  on  hastily  and  a  leaving  off  my  criticisms. 


332  The  Great  Way 

You  should  be  happy,  Elise,  with  moreover  my  singing, 
for  indeed,  indeed,  I  shall  give  a  great  performance! 
Yes,  it  should  be  perhaps  as  yet  my  greatest !"  And 
with  a  gesture  that  seemed  to  hurl  the  car  forward  with- 
out Elise's  command,  she  turned  and  hurried  into  the 
Richelieu. 

In  her  quarters,  which  were  the  most  expensive  in  this 
rather  patrician  refuge,  and  in  better  taste  despite  that 
fact  than  was  quite  suitable  to  her  instincts  for  gaiety, 
Daisy  was  seated,  the  little  red  books  in  her  lap  and  her 
helpless  hands  there  too,  not  dreaming  that  Wanda  was 
descendant  upon  her,  not  knowing  that  her  chiffon  bow 
was  a  mass  of  ruin  from  the  silver  rain  that  had  coursed 
down  her  petals,  not  knowing  what  to  do,  not  knowing 
•anything  definite,  in  short,  except  that  she  was  bitterly 
Mnhappy  and  horribly  frightened.  After  the  elegantly 
(anguaged  manner  of  folks  who  breakfast  abed,  Daisy 
had  supped  in  her  own  room,  with  nothing  but  her  title 
to  accompany  her,  not  having  imagination  enough  to 
avoid  such  a  pass,  not  even  enough  to  sup  i'-th'-dining- 
room  and  scrape  a  flirtation  with  the  waiter.  So  she  had 
begun  to  boo-hoo  even  before  the  arrival  of  the  little  red 
books. 

Truly  life  had  lately  been  rude  to  the  little  princess, 
and  now,  after  a  chilly,  lonesome  ocean  voyage,  domiciled 
here  in  Paris  and  in  state,  her  amusement  resources  were 
few,  and  none  at  all  her  escapes  from  the  kindless  truth 
that  of  all  rude  recent  matters  she  had  been  rudest  of  all 
to  herself  in  her  whole  whirligig  action — ruder  even  than 
life,  which  would  have  given  her  a  chance;  ruder  even 
than  she  herself,  not  only  in  results  but  in  texture  of 
etiquette,  to  a  worthier  friend  of  Wanda's  indeed  than  slie 
had  ever  been  ( that  nasty  slinking  brown-eyed  shop-tailed 
Mrs.  Rugg).  It  was  bitter,  this  to  know.  But  when 
Daisy  perforce  faced  a  truth,  she  did  it  childwise,  exactly 
as  she  faced  a  caramel.  It  was  a  caramel,  or  it  was  not. 
A  spade  was  not  an  emerald.  Or  if  it  was,  this  would 
be  hard  to  prove.  And  with  these  sad  thoughts  recurrent 


The  Great  Wayward  One  333 

and  unconquerable,  with  eyes  tight  closed  Daisy  diluted 
her  soup  the  louder.  Splash.  Gulp.  Nor  was  it  soup 
she  gulped,  which  a  princess  would  not  do,  but  a  large 
lumpy  longing  for  Wanda. 

For  such  a  gruesome  evening  as  unfolded  there  was, 
of  course,  or  were,  The  Apples  of  Jacquot-Jacquette — 
one  or  two.  Delicious,  untasted  chapters.  But  least  of  all 
could  Daisy  swallow  these.  For  a  particular  and  dreadful 
memory  of  her  auto-expulsion  from  Eden  haunted  those 
apples  now. 

Toward  the  New  York  close,  as  she  was  brandishing 
her  self-inflicted  flaming  sword,  a  question  had  arisen — 
a  question  that  was  a  very  spectre,  a  hapless  thing  that 
might  readily  all  along  have  been  foretold;  a  question  as 
to  the  real  ownership  of  that  priceless  volume,  paradoxi- 
cally priceless,  for  its  market  value  was  on  easy  record. 
Because  of  a  mutual  vice,  the  vice  of  shopping,  the  only 
thing  wherein  they  really  liked  each  other,  Elise  and  Daisy 
always  owed  each  other  money — unless  for  a  very  few 
minutes  once  a  month,  always ;  in  amounts  varying  from 
two  francs,  a  case  of  chocolate,  to  sixty-eight  dollars,  a 
case  of  manicure  tools.  And  on  the  day  of  Wanda's  last 
New  York  matinee,  a  day  of  apparently  foreordained 
fatalism,  when  she  had  from  a  positively  nameless  whim 
dispensed  with  Elise's  help,  and  for  a  role,  at  that,  need- 
ing more  make-up  than  any  other  she  sang,  and  while 
Daisy  in  the  apartment  debated  whether  dignity  flatly 
demanded  that  she  give  Wanda  back  the  Swiss  clock  or 
flatly  demanded  that  she  keep  it,  up  had  grown  between 
her  and  Elise,  alone  together,  with  no  possible  referee, 
the  hellish  doubt  as  to  which  had  paid  for  those  paper 
apples. 

What  ensued  had  one  good  upshot:  that  poor  little 
clock  was  put  out  of  its  misery  for  ever  and  ever  and 
ever,  smashed  into  a  myriad  fluffs  and  spirals  and  splin- 
ters, its  little  voice  never  to  plaint  its  loneliness  again,  its 
little  insides  nevermore  to  whiz. 

But  that  was   the  only  happy  thing  that  happened, 


334  The  Great  Way 

for  Daisy  and  Elise  had  been  so  absorbed  in  scratching 
each  other  that  unfortunately  they  did  not  begin  to 
scream  until  they  saw  the  blood  all  over  Wanda's  desk, 
and  the  elevator-boy  who  found  them  sitting  on  the  floor 
hugging  each  other  and  howling  with  terror  had  not 
stopped  satisfied  with  sending  for  a  doctor  but  had  sent 
to  the  opera  house  for  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  and  with  such 
proficient  acumen  that  he  had  nearly  ruined  a  perform- 
ance of  A'ida.  And  Wanda  the  Coloured  Woman  had  es- 
caped from  suffocation  in  an  Egyptian  tomb  to  rush, 
still  at  least  two-thirds  a  coloured  woman,  home  to  a 
drawing-room  drenched  with  Daisy's  and  Elise's  blood 
and  to  learn  at  last  something  of  the  real  meaning,  if 
not  the  real  pronunciation,  of  the  word  "catastroaf." 
Moreover  Wanda  could  not  patch  the  case  with  money, 
her  first  instinct,  for  bandaged  and  helpless  and  their 
physician  gone,  the  two  white  ladies'  fright  had  departed 
and  their  anger  returned,  and  neither  one  would  take  it. 
And  then  the  desperate  semi-African,  either  inspired  or 
of  phenomenal  memory,  had  realized  that  she  could  black- 
mail Elise,  and  she  did  it. 

She  remembered  that  Elise  had  finished  the  book,  and 
lied  about  it.  Elise  got  money;  Daisy  got  the  book. 

But  it  was  an  unhappy  day,  that  whole  A'ida  matinee 
day;  for  Wanda  could  not  concentrate  that  night,  not 
even  upon  her  own  little  red  book. 

Nor  could  Daisy  concentrate  upon  it  now,  as  she  sat 
with  its  multiple  of  several  and  their  torn  envelope  in  her 
lap,  frightened  and  weeping  in  the  Richelieu. 

When  they  had  arrived  upon  her  in  their  packet  as  an 
ominous  dessert  to  that  almost  untasted  supper,  a  great 
heart-leap  at  the  outer  handwriting  had  shot  her  finger 
under  the  flap  and  wrenched  it  open ;  but  with  sight  of  the 
contents,  one  astonished  and  confirming  glance  at  the 
inner  script  had  flashed  back  upon  her  a  vivid  memory 
of  that  bright  money-gold  winter  afternoon  when  Wanda, 
sweet,  grave  and  gentle,  had  told  her  of  some  such 
possible  contingency  as  this,  and  omen  gripped  her. 


335 

From  that  evening  until  this  one,  she  had  forgotten 
it  utterly;  but  it  was  sharply  with  her  now,  and  after 
any  such  odd  pregnant  conversation,  no  little  princess 
would  have  to  have  read  "A  Modest  Passion,"  or  even 
"Jacquot,"  to  be  excusable  for  assuming  in  such  as  this 
moment  that  catastrophe  with  all  its  syllables  had  fallen, 
or  was  about  to  fall,  upon  a  loved  Wanda  de  1'Etoile. 
And  these  two  novels  this  little  princess  had  read — "A 
Modest  Passion"  in  full,  for  the  print  was  still  larger; 
while  she  had  reasons  to  think  that  before  the  very  last 
end  of  Jacquot-Jacquette  there  was  to  be  a  scene  of 
dragging  the  Seine  for*  that  dlainty  heroine — another 
causation  than  the  fight  with  Elise  for  not  quite  finishing 
it  yet,  and  a  rather  delicious  one. 

But  to  have  such  an  episode  enter  into  real  life,  and 
her  real  life,  was  not  delicious  a  bit,  and  Daisy  quavered, 
with  the  little  books  in  her  little  hands.  She  believed  in 
her  heart,  partly  because  her  heart  wanted  her  to  believe, 
and  partly  from  roughly  accurate  intuition,  that  Wanda 
was  at  the  Opera,  where  she  was  to  sing  "La  Traviata" 
to-night,  as  she  knew  from  the  Herald,  which  she  looked 
in  every  day  for  her  own  name,  to  find  only  Wanda's. 
And  this  conviction  gave  her  a  just  respite  from  as  yet 
calling  the  police,  which  would  have  made  her  very  ill, 
or  seeking  Arnold,  whose  address  she  did  not  know.  She 
longed  hungrily  for  Arnold,  longed  in  this  emergency  to 
bury  her  nose  in  him  and  drench  his  bosom  instead  of 
her  own ;  but  by  those  little  books  in  her  lap  she  was 
stirred  in  too  deep  a  way  to  yowl  for  the  moon,  and  her 
little  soul  was  busy  with  sounder  processes. 

Initially,  she  knew  she  was  meant  to  read  them.  So 
much  was  patent.  The  wordless  message,  the  packet's 
mere  direction,  said  that  clearly.  And  Wanda's  assumed 
interval  at  the  Opera  House  gave  her  opportunity,  oppor- 
tunity which  might,  in  turn,  cast  light — brilliant  light. 
But,  as  yet  anyway,  she  could  not,  and  she  would  not. 

Could  not  because  of  tears,  and  would  not  because 
every  basic  instinct,  every  mental  habit,  every  unnoticed 


336  The  Great  Way 

Sut  recorded  life-observation  of  the  whole  little  princess 
forbade  her  to,  and  in  issuing  the  mandate  explained 
courteously  that  there  was  a  mistake  somewhere — if  not 
a  sheer  mistake,  namely  one  of  accident,  then  a  mistake 
of  Wanda's  own,  the  lapsing  impulsion  of  a  very  great 
and  momentarily  blinded  temperament. 

Then,  as  the  tear-streams  partially  subsided,  read  them 
she  did — in  part,  in  a  very  small  handful  of  little  snatches, 
a  cautious,  frightened  sentence  here,  a  fascinated,  awe- 
struck discovery  yonder,  and  rightly  self- justified  in  both 
her  gingerly  action  and  the  decision  that  came  from  it, 
and  that  slapped  the  books  sharply  shut  and  completely 
whitened  her  face  with  scare  and  yearning  wretchedness. 
Had  the  little  princess  been  in  the  habit  of  talking  to  her 
guardian  angel  she  would  have  told  him  now  that  indeed 
he  had  been  correct  in  his  rap  upon  her  shoulder. 

For  these  books,  the  little  princess  now  definitely  knew, 
were  not  for  the  little  princess,  beyond  the  beautiful 
and  quite  sufficient  fact  of  Wanda's  love  in  sending  them 
to  her.  To  read  them  was  her  right,  by  an  act  of  Wanda's 
will,  a  right  very  much  such  as  that  purveyed  by  a  will 
and  testament,  in  this  case  a  will — and  a  testament ! — 
of  sheer  love.  But  that  long  celestial  forefinger  tapping 
her  shoulder  just  as  clearly  wrote  that  this  was  no  last  will 
and  testament. 

One  more  thing  would  she  read,  and  with  a  crystal 
conscience,  if  she  could  find  it  without  seeing  too  much 
along  the  road.  These  already  glimpses  had  been  early 
in  the  multiple  little  book.  .  .  .  Trudge  Market.  .  .  . 
Society.  .  .  .  She  sought  nearer  the  end,  and  with  in- 
stinct and  approximate  mental  arithmetic,  without  disas- 
ter found  the  undated  day  when  she  had  so  interrupted 
Wanda,  and  they  had  talked.  And  here,  discovering  that 
it  had  concerned  herself,  the  little  princess  read  ...  to 
the  end  of  that  day  .  .  .  and  closed  the  little  book,  and, 
other  than  those  early,  shudder-stirring  phrases,  and 
beyond  this  special  chapter  not  only  meant  for  her  but 
destined  for  her,  closed  it  forever,  so  far  as  she  was  con- 


The  Great  Wayward  One  337 

cerned ;  and  had  the  whole  Inquisitions,  Italian,  Spanish^ 
French  and  German,  been  distilled  into  one  capsule  torture 
to  fit  her  miniature  person  and  applied  thereto,  it  could 
not  have  made  her  open  it  again,  or  open  her  eyes  if  it 
was  opened  before  them. 

And  covering  the  whole  little  red  company  with  their 
torn  envelope  that  they  might  not  be  deluged  the  while 
she  held  them  tight  clasped  on  her  little  knees,  she  sat 
there  weeping  as  silently  as  she  could  manage,  wondering 
how  soon  she  could  pull  herself  with  a  decent  appearance 
to  the  Opera,  and  what  she  would  do  if  she  found  big 
startling  placards,  and  not  Wanda,  there;  and  was  thus 
sitting  when  the  door  before  her  was  flung  open. 

Madame  de  1'Etoile  had  a  way,  a  determined  the  while 
a  largely  unconscious  one,  of  having  her  way,  in  the  minor 
matters  of  life,  in  certain  moods.  And  part  of  her  great 
way  to-night  had  been  to  reach  the  little  princess  un- 
announced. The  last  New  York  scenes  of  Daisy's  panther- 
pinwheel  chapter  of  Exodus  had  given  Wanda  no  straw 
for  belief  that  the  princessly  pride  would  ever  be  lowered 
unless  beaten  down.  Therefore  when  she  learned  at  the 
Richelieu,  where  she  was  not  known,  that  Daisy  was  at 
home  and  that  her  packet  had  been  delivered,  the  strange 
prima  donna  performed  some  instantaneous  miracle,  just 
what  she  never  knew,  nor  ever  did  anyone  else  concerned 
in  it,  whereby  she  learned  the  location  of  Daisy's  rooms 
and  moreover  reached  them  before  a  telephone  message 
could — if,  indeed,  one  ever  tried  to. 

And  one  long  moment  afterward,  they  had  reached 
each  other. 

In  that  one  long  moment  of  silent  gaze,  the  little 
covered  books  and  the  helpless  tear-wet  hands  in  Daisy's 
lap  had  told  Wanda  a  plain  story,  the  one  she  had  hoped 
for;  and  Wanda's  lovely  face,  its  happy  relief  chasing 
tensity  away  though  it  still  left  excitement,  had  told  as 
plain  a  one  to  Daisy — one  that  might  well  have  made 
her  literally  gossip  with  that  guardian  angel  and  tell 
him,  this  time:  "We  were  right!" 


338  The  Great  Way 

Then  had  come,  without  words  at  first,  and  afterward 
with  many,  their  embrace,  and  Daisy's  newest  silver 
shower,  and  their  paddle,  on  the  flood  of  it,  across  their 
gulf ;  the  whole  followed  by  Wanda's  swift,  almost  breath- 
less explanation,  for  withal  her  clear-brained  self-pos- 
session, extraordinary  even  in  view  of  its  business  neces- 
sity, to-night  she  was  hectic. 

It  was  with  an  eye  inclusive  of  the  merciless  clock  (a 
terribly  plain  one,  without  even  a  baboon  on  it!)  that 
she  phrased  a  vital  part  of  it: 

"I  had  a  purpose,  dear.  It  was  in  the  hope  to  make 
you  understand  some  things  for  your  own  sake;  but  only 
if,  and  when,  a  greater  purpose  of  mine  had  ceased,  and 
these  could  be  for  you.  And  that  purpose  had  not  ceased. 
I  only  supposed  it.  It  could  not.  And  I  knew  that,  and 
knew  it  not  too  late  for  the  preventing  of  great  wrong, 
wrong  on  my  part,  only  by  the  grace  of  God — or  Truth. 
For  I  knew  it  one  minute,  or  perhaps  less  than  one 
minute,  after  I  sent  them  to  you,  for  a  corresponding 
packet  of  Truth  was  that  same  instant  on  its  way  to  me, 
across  the  hotel  corridor.  A  little  vision,  a  little  genre 
picture,  with  God's  Truth  for  me  in  it — painted  in  it, 
more  briefly  and  better  than  any  writing  of  mine  has 
done  here — a  little,  little  thing,  like  the  smallest  ever 
found  oyster,  with  the  biggest  ever  found  pearl  inside. 
I  had  been  wrong,  was  planning  more  wrong;  I  suddenly 
knew  it,  and  I  did  not  do  it.  I  had  sent  you  my  littlei 
books.  That  was  not  wrong,  it  merely  was  mistaken.  I 
see  truth  to-night  as  one  can  at  best  but  seldom  see  it 
— see  it  even  to  phrases.  Well,  what  I  had  sent  my  little 
books  to  you  in  was  not  an  envelope,  and  was  not  a  wrong 
act,  but  was  friendship's  whimsical  chivalry.  Remember 
those  words,  dear.  The  realness  of  my  friendship  to  you 
will  not  be  hereafter  whimsical.  Whimsies  I  will  keep 
for  the  Opera,  where  they  are  more  in  keeping  with  Truth. 
— I  have  some  for  to-night! — Well,  from  that  pearl- 
oyster  I  knew  it  was  in  friendship's  whimsical  chivalry 
that  my  little  books  had  gone  to  you.  I  came  after  them. 


The  Great  Wayward  One  339 

I  thought  if  I  hurried  you  likely  would  not  yet  have  read 
them.     And  you  had  not.     No?" 

"No,  darling  Wanda!"  exclaimed  the  little  princess, 
gazing  straight  into  her  eyes.  "I  knew  I  was  meant  to, 
but  something  told  me  to  wait,  at  least  wait,  and  I  did, 
and  hadn't  read  a  word !  Not  one !  I  could  feel  there 
wasn't  any  letter  inside,  and  I  hadn't  even  opened  them. 
I  put  them  right  back  in  the  envelope!  So  I  hadn't  read 
even  one  letter  of  one  word !" 

And  thus  with  exquisite  little  lie  upon  exquisite  little 
lie  the  little  princess  built,  perhaps  for  the  first  time  in 
her  life,  a  big  beautiful  truth,  a  truth  as  lovely  and  as 
real  as  a  Dresden  china  figurine  tells  in  saying  it  is  a 
princess,  when  it  comprises  a  truer  and  more  beautiful 
idea  of  one  than  any  flesh  and  blood  could  possibly  do. 

And  Wanda,  seeing  to-night  only  the  beauty  and  truth 
of  this  one,  believed  every  word  she  said,  and  bidding  her 
for  lunch  to-morrow,  with  a  last  swift  glance  at  the  un- 
Swiss,  un-animaled  clock  and  a  swift  yet  lingering  kiss 
on  the  rose-petal  lips,  sped  once  more  past  the  still 
lightning-struck  lobbyists  of  the  Richelieu,  into  her  re- 
arrived  and  diligently  waiting  car,  and  to  the  buzzing, 
less  patiently  waiting  crowded  Opera. 

In  the  brief,  flashing  whirr  to  it  from  her  recaptured 
friend,  with  her  thoughts  concentratedly  organizing  for 
her  next  task,  arbitrarily  a  ch'ance  yet  fitting  phrase — a 
not  infrequent  occurrence — flashed  to  her  from  the  little 
red  books  now  held  tightly  in  her  own  lap  instead  of  her 
little  Daisy's,  and  with  a  new  application :  "  'Violeta5 
itself  is  a  step  forward  in  petal-colour  from  'Margue- 
rite.' "  When  she  had  written  it,  she  remembered  very 
keenly,  she  had  meant  Marguerite  Gautier,  not  the  pretty 
little  Goethe-Gounod  lady,  though  she  was  discoursing  of 
art,  and  not  the  pretty  little  princess,  though  she  was 
discoursing  too  of  life.  And  now  her  word-penchent  was 
affixing  the  notion  to  Daisy.  But  none  the  less,  every 
such  accidental  thought  was  grateful  to  her  intensively 
personal  mood  of  to-night.  ...  It  seemed  but  a  moment 


340  The  Great  Way 

when  the  moon-made  shadow  of  the  soft,  glorious  Opera 
House  was  upon  her.  .  .  . 

Even  so  the  performance  in  the  Place  de  1'Opera, 
heart  of  the  world,  that  night,  was  more  than  a  half 
an  hour  late,  for  Wanda  herself  had  been  almost,  if  not 
quite,  more  than  a  half-hour  late;  but  that  stalled  crowd 
was  to  be  repaid,  and  over  again,  for  that  interval  of 
snapping,  rude  Parisian  boredom. 

No  more  than  on  that  strange  little  debut  night  at  the 
Tivoli  in  La  Gran  Via,  did  Wanda,  in  business,  ever 
apologize — for  anything.  It  was  a  trying  but  a  trenchant 
and  worth-knowing  fact  to  impresarios,  that  de  1'Etoile 
did  not  have  to. 

On  each  of  the  rare  several  occasions  when  she  had 
kept  crowds  waiting  on  the  edge  of  their  own  teeth  and 
ready  to  hoot,  the  noise  upon  her  appearance  had  been 
rapturous  noise,  of  the  kind  that  could  have  afforded 
her,  if  she  had  wanted  such  a  thing,  a  bolero  snap  of  her 
fingers  at  any  director  of  nerves  worn  threadbare  who, 
if  he  had  gone  after  her  with  a  horsewhip,  would  have 
found  his  hand  palsied  and  his  will-power  devastated  by 
her  smile  instead. 

Yet,  that  famous  smile  and  all,  she  was  nearer  the 
bolero  mood  to-night  as  she  achieved  her  dressing-room, 
unaware  of  any  daggered  managerial  thoughts  or  sounds 
if  there  had  been  any — a  mood,  indeed,  of  selfishness,  for 
that  was  what  she  told  herself,  in  her  self-unsparing 
phraseology,  she  was  allowing  herself  to-night.  It  was  a 
lovely  kind  of  selfishness  in  the  main,  and  its  one  high 
point  of  otherwise,  as  to  one  heart  in  that  house  that  she 
must  make  ache  on  her  account  if  it  did  not  ache  in- 
tuitively already,  she  knew  she  must,  for  the  sake  of 
thousands  of  other  people,  not  allow  to  sadden  her,  for 
thereby  it  might  sadden  her  beautiful  Violeta. 

The  room,  she  found,  was  unusually  full  of  flowers — 
among  them,  a  great  weight  of  hyacinth-hearted  orchids. 
She  knew,  without  looking,  that  they  were  from  Arnold ; 
and  having  dropped  her  cloak  behind  her  into  the  middle 


341 

of  the  floor  she  lifted  the  heaviness  of  ravishing  extrav- 
agant things  and  pitched  them  past  Elise  into  a  corner. 

She  knew  that  this  would  horrify  Elise,  and  was  not 
a  bit  sorry,  on  that  account,  to  do  it;  but  her  actuation 
had  been  that  she  knew  equally  well  that  Marguerite 
Gautier  would  have  done  it.  And  with  this  keytone  to 
her  flower  of  to-night — as  it  would  bloom  to-night  at  last 
— her  strange  hot-house  blossom  that  was  violet  and 
marguerite  and  camellia,  she  drew  forward  her  elaborate 
make-up  box,  her  eyes  kindling  to  this  newest,  perhaps 
her  last  actually  creative,  task  of  reincarnating  Verdi's 
— Dumas's  and  Verdi's — de  1'Etoile's  and  Dumas's  and 
Verdi's  Wayward  One. 

With  her  very  motion  of  those  luscious  orchids  into  the 
corner — hurtling  motion,  intentional  wantonness — she 
had  been  making  a  promise  to  Arnold,  a  sacred  promise 
that  she  would  sacredly  keep,  specifically,  to  give  him, 
as  she  had  already  proffered  and  would  give  to  Daisy, 
all  the  sweetness  that  could  be,  in  his  case  all  that  his 
pain  would  allow  him  to  take,  from  the  new  self,  the 
renewed  being  of  winged  victory  that  through  the  re- 
mainder of  her  Great  Way  she  now  believed  she  could 
be.  Her  intellect  had  pitched  the  orchids,  not  failing  to 
note  and  register,  as  they  hurtled,  a  connotation  by  the 
way  of  that  word  "pitch"  with  musical  pitch;  while  her 
heart  had  simultaneously  made  that  pact  with  Truth,  and 
Arnold  Rutgers,  and  herself.  And  as  her  fingers  dived 
swiftly  into  the  make-up  box  now  and  went  deftly  about 
their  business,  she  was  still  two  women ;  and  one  of  them 
was  hunting  for  another  word — a  word  that  she  had 
spoken  to-night,  or  if  not  spoken,  thought  so  poignantly 
that  it  had  valued  as  sound  with  her,  and  thereupon  been 
mentally,  and  rot  just  mentally  but  spiritually,  pigeon- 
holed, and  it  was  tagged  "Elise."  It  was  something 
either  spoken  or  at  least  hitched  to  Elise,  then,  not  to 
Daisy — and  necessarily  born,  therefore,  in  the  car.  Some- 
thing she  had  long  striven  for,  and  suddenly  articulated 
or  visualized  by  chance  .  .  .  Desert !  .  .  .  That  was  it. 


342  The  Great  Way 

Desert.  That  Arc  de  Triomphe  figure — "another  soul 
that  craved  and  readied  forth  prayerfully  in  the  desert." 
That  was  put  safely  away,  then :  Desert  .  .  .  and  as 
Elise  turned  to  gathering  up  the  scattered  clothes  and 
mangled  orchids,  the  two  women  at  the  mirror  began  to 
merge  into  one  woman. 

Once,  they  paused — rouge-stick  in  hand,  and  stared 
at  each  other  as  the  word-will-o'-the-wisp  danced  before 
her  again,  now  some  word  a  propos  of  this  make-up 
business,  to  go  with  that  word  Desert.  But  there  would 
be  ample  time  for  thought  late  to-night  perhaps,  or  if  not, 
to-morrow;  and  with  Desert  and  this  latest  uncaptured 
brain-flash  pigeon-holed  together,  the  merger-miracle  of 
the  two  women  became  complete. 

On  the  rich  pure  loveliness  of  Wanda  de  1'Etoile  the 
singing  actress  superimposed  the  pallid,  peculiar  mask  of 
her  first,  youthful  braving  of  the  restless,  smoking  Span- 
ish audience  of  that  Barcelona  Tivoli — sheer,  dead,  white 
pallor,  with  lips  sharply,  intensely  carmined;  a  mask 
as  metallically  Parisienne  as  the  strange  girl  she  had 
sKbwn  to  the  public  then,  as  exotic  as  the  crushed  orchids 
that  Elise  was  resurrecting  in  the  corner.  And  she  drew 
back  her  dark  hair,  parted,  beautiful,  and  unadorned, 
into  a  low  knot  between  her  naked  shoulders — as  it  had 
been  that  night,  and  as  the  real  "Lady  of  the  Camellias" 
is  traditioned  to  have  done. 

When  she  stood  ready,  through  the  overture,  trembling 
yet  confident,  even  defiant,  she  was  a  queer,  a  true,  a, 
new,  an  old  Camille;  nor  did  she  forget — for  to  forget 
anything  peculiar  to  her  work  of  artistry  was  as  far  from 
Wanda  de  1'Etoile  as  her  arbitrarily  chosen  name  was 
from  the  earth — that  New  York  entree  of  her  "Traviata." 
Paris  had  never  seen  that ;  Paris  would  see  it  now. 

Its  spirit,  daintily  elegant  and  fascinatingly  strange  to 
this  portrait  of  to-night,  a  magic  frame  for  the  extraor- 
dinary soul  of  it,  was  wafting  up  to  her  like  a  perfume 
from  the  great  crinoline  dress  and  its  roses  and  rosettes 
and  nature  of  roses.  And  when,  lifting  her  arm  and 


The  Great  Wayward  One  343 

placing  it  in  that  of  her  waiting  cavalier,  the  dazzled 
cavalier  of  a  protean  woman  in  one  vivid  tableau  vivant, 
she  stepped  out  upon  the  famous  stage  to  face  her  Paris 
and  to  sing,  as  the  last  little  red  book  had  promised  she 
would  sing  for  her  heart's  so  nearly  lost  desire,  a  hectic 
flush  from  her  real  flesh  stealing  up  through  the  painted 
pallor,  and  paused,  with  her  mouth  open,  impudently 
holding  back  the  orchestra  and  Violeta's  first  note  for  a 
full,  breathless,  dangerous  moment,  a  visionary,  conscious 
Marguerite  Gautier  of  every  facet,  false  of  gaiety,  in- 
stinct with  bravado,  a  bold-eyed  woman  hanging  to  life 
with  one  hand  while  life  itself  slipped  away,  a  very  symbol 
of  the  white  plague,  Paris  saw,  as  Paris  so  peculiarly  can 
see,  and  appreciated,  and — noised.  .  .  . 

And  another  New  World  memory  flashed  back  to  her, 
and  one  that  was  also  another  promissory  note  of  the 
little  red  book: 

"And  so  must  it  go  on  with  me  as  to  'La  Traviata,' 
until  I  know  that  she  is  my  final  expression  of  her.  That 
will  arrive  suddenly,  some  time,  from  some  strange,  great 
mood.  Under  what  strange,  great  mood  of  the  Great 
Way  will  that  be?" 

And  at  that  noise,  she  knew. 

In  their  vivid  reversion  to  her  those  words,  and  their 
answer,  were  written  in  radiant  letters  in  her  vision  now ; 
a  writing  on  that  wall  of  faces  before  her;  letters  of 
phosphorus,  on  that  sea  of  faces  .  .  .  that  roaring  sea, 
roaring  its  ownership  of  her  .  .  .  its,  the  people's  .  .  . 
that  had  cast  up  to  where  it  belonged  this  pure  amber 
on  to  a  shore  of  the  Great  Way  .  .  .  and  in  exact  mem- 
ory of  the  little  book  her  mind  leapt  back  to,  and  repeated 
now,  the  words  exactly  preceding  those  of  this  present 
phosphorus:  "Yes,  I  am  happy!"  .  .  .  and  then  far 
forward,  though  again  back,  to  the  same  little  book's, 
though  not  the  same  little  volume's,  almost  last  words  of 
to-night,  words,  gracias  a  Dios,  not  to  be  near  its  last: 
"How  I  will  sing  for  you."  .  .  . 

"But  am  I  singing?"  she  asked  herself  countless  times ; 


344  The  Great  Way 

and  countless  times  her  own  voice  answered  her,  not  only 
with  all  its  greatest  greatness  of  the  past,  but  with  a 
new  ring,  a  new  metallic  vibration  that  was  tossed,  and 
tossed,  and  tossed  about  upon  a  prismatic  architectural 
bubble  of  art  that  she  had  never  felt  in  her  throat,  never 
seen  in  her  farthest  vision,  before.  And  that  new  metal 
had  been  a  precious,  a  spiritual  metal.  Wanda  de  1'Etoile 
could  have  successfully  impersonated  a  fire-alarm  any 
time  she  chose ;  but  she  had  never  yet  elected  to  sing  like  a 
gong  and  she  had  not  done  so  to-night.  Facets.  .  .  .  The 
first  act  was  over. 

The  chorus  was  gossiping,  in  wondering,  slant-eyed 
groups.  And  she  thrilled  at  the  sight  and  the  little  hush- 
ing hum  of  it  as  she  quitted  the  noise  to  be  folded  out  by 
the  curtain  and  made  her  way  to  her  room ;  no  stack  of 
morning  newspapers  could  have  told  her  more,  or  con- 
firmed her  so  much,  and  at  so  fair  a  moment. 

"And  I  did  not  once  look  at  Arno !  Poor  boy !  That 

is  life !"  But  it  had  happened  to  be  life  only  because 

she  had  not  dared  to  look  toward  him,  until  that  con- 
firmation just  now;  until  the  voice  was  assured,  the  figure 
unbreakable,  for  the  night;  until  the  beginning  clamped 
firmly  to  the  end.  Thought  of  him,  she  had ;  and  against 
that  thought,  side  by  side  with  it,  she  had  placed  another 
for  counterweight — of  someone  else  hanging,  somewhere 
in  that  great  house  of  the  great  voice,  on  every  tone  of 
it,  and  on  every  look  of  her  who  owned  and  uttered  it, 
and  someone  whom  she  knew  she  was  making  happy — 
and  happier,  with  every  tone  and  every  look;  someone 
who,  always  on  these  great  nights,  was  miraculously 
never  very  far  from  her,  never  too  close — on  great  nights 
of  debut,  or  of  premiere,  perhaps  a  preciously  chosen 
inch  further  away,  rather  than  closer,  in  his  fear  of  his 
nerves  unnerving  her;  on  accidental  great  ones  such  as 
this,  forewarned,  it  positively  always  seemed,  by  some 
alchemy  of  intuition,  perhaps  a  few  excited  inches  nearer, 
ready  for  her  wireless  message  to  come  nearer  still,  or 


345 

to  go  further  away ;  always  a  shadow,  but  always  a 
shadow  warm  and  self  directing. 

And  as  she  prepared  swiftly  for  the  second  act,  phoenix- 
ing  from  the  elaborate  dress  into  the  delicious  cottage 
one  and  its  odd  hat  homely  as  a  little  house  with  her 
face  the  lovelier  under  the  roof  of  it,  she  sent  Elise  for 
him. 

He,  quite  as  well  as  she  did,  knew  her  voice  and  her 
Violeta  proof  against  armies  now,  and  rushed  in  angrily. 

"Thirty-two  minutes  late!"  he  cried.  "I  will  go  back 
to  my  grandparents  in  Italy!  Thirty-two  years  toward 
my  grave  since  my  supper !  I  will  be  a  nice,  fitting  play- 
mate for  them  now!" 

On  the  golden  flecks  in  his  dark  brown  eyes,  unique 
and  fascinating  as  buttercups  dancing  in  coffee,  she 
feasted  for  a  long  instant,  love  bubbling  to  ascendancy 
over  her  suppressed  gaiety,  and  then,  with  an  impulsion 
of  her  whole  heart  to  him,  tacit,  quite  as  if  they  had 
reviewed  together  every  phase  of  her  recent  hours  and 
were  met  now  to  decide  when  to  hand  down  full  judgment 
upon  the  whole,  and  calm  of  demeanour,  but  with  a 
swirl  into  their  gibberish  of  a  dozen  climates,  she  said : 

"Mariana,  darling!  Si,  and  I  so  much  must  talk  to 
you  !  Ah,  ah,  mucho,  muy,  caro — carissimo  !  Now — in- 
stantly— if  we  but  could!  But  even  with  Violeta  done, 
at  the  close  I  have  still  work — dutiful,  hard  work.  And 
to-morrow  for  luncheon,  Daisy " 

His  eyebrows  shot  heavenward  like  black  parentheses 
fallen  forward  and  then  bounced  up  by  their  stomachs. 

"Spiders  for  luncheon !"  he  cried. 

"Yes,  yes,  mi  caro,  Daisy!  But  that  is  but  a  detail 
of  my  happiness !  And  we  will  be  glad  together — after- 
ward. Come  and  take  me  somewhere — think  of  some- 
where gay !  We  will  be  spendthrif  ty !  Come  and  bring 
with  you  all  the  cigarettes  not  yet  smoked  in  Paris,  to 
the  hotel,  at  four  o'clock  to-morrow !" 

"You  are  la  Traviata  to-night !"  he  cried,  and  his  cry 
was  both  a  paean  and  a  protest,  an  acclamation  and  an 


346  The  Great  Way 

accusation.  "You  are  la  Traviata  !  Wayward,  wayward, 
wayward!  Whimsie,  whimsie,  whimsie!  Toadstools  for 
luncheon !  Cigarettes !  Gaiety !  I  will  be  four-hundred 
and  four  years  old  at  four  o'clock  to-morrow!"  But  his 
brown  pools  of  eyes  were  ecstatic  as  he  kissed  her  hands 
and  left  her. 

"Elise,"  she  exclaimed,  as  she  did  a  last  bit  of  con- 
struction-work, never  let  out  to  Elise,  on  the  roof  of  her 
delightfully  absurd  hat,  and  mentally  christening  it  for 
hereafter  "the  birdcage,"  with  a  connoting  thought  of 
cottages  and  of  all  that  had  led  her  to  this  Wayward 
One  of  to-night,  "I  would  like,  if  I  were  really  insisted 
upon  to  an  encore,  I  would  really  like,  to-night,  to  do  it, 
and  to  sing  'La  Apache' !" 

And  had  Wanda  de  1'Etoile  uncharacteristically  in- 
dulged this  characteristic  whim,  there  would  have  been  in 
the  words,  as  in  the  heart  there  was,  a  great  cry.  .  .  . 

And  quite  suddenly,  quite  deliberately  though  so  un- 
premeditatedly,  in — and  from— -the  pretty  garden  of  that 
second  act's  cottage  scene,  that  great  cry  did  go  out  in 
words,  words  that  did  not  hold  its  message,  but  whose 
golden  sound  did,  and  the  soul  of  that  sound;  went  out 
to  seek,  if  it  could,  through  the  mysterious  potential  or 
impotential  ether,  another  soul,  that  was  but  an  unknown 
figure  to  her  mind.  It  was  toward  the  close — in  the  last 
of  her  rich  musical  doings  before  the  poor  lover's  strip- 
ping of  love's  riches.  Always  that  impending  touch  of 
"Manon"  in  the  thing,  that  quaint  touch  of  book-within- 
a-book,  was  dear  and  real  and  pitiful  to  her.  And  as  if 
everything  of  this  night  must  somehow  concern  itself  with 
her  Traviata,  the  figure  far  up,  now  far  off,  on  the  Arc 
de  Triomphe,  desolate  and  unmistakably  akin  to  her- 
self in  longing,  came  back  to  her.  And  in  a  long,  a 
suffering  cry  of  Violeta's,  she  sent  that  heart-cry  of  "La 
Apache"  and  of  Wanda  de  1'Etoile  out  to  it,  to  answer 
it,  somehow;  somehow  to  comfort  it.  "You  alone  are 
not  alone!"  it  said.  And  fortified  by  the  strengthening 


The  Great  Wayward  One  347 

beauty  of  so  sheer  and  so  pure  an  act  of  love,  she  looked 
for  the  first  time  at  Arnold's  box. 

Instantly  upon  that  swift  glance  there  was  a  movement 
there,  and  through  the  air  vibrating  with  her  voice  some- 
thing curved  in  an  arc  before  her  eyes  and  fell  at  her  feet. 
It  was  a  great  armful  of  camellias.  Customarily,  it  was 
in  the  next  act,  in  that  golden  money-shower  that  she 
turned  to  a  rain  of  blood,  that  opera-house  customs  were 
shattered  by  forbidden  tributes  to  her  Violeta.  This,  came 
as  if  life  must  even  so  instantly  repay  that  sending  of 
soul  bread  upon  the  waters  of  the  air  toward  the  Arc  de 
Triomphe.  .  .  .  Life  at  once  repaying  an  act  of  pure  love 
with  an  act  of  love  as  pure.  For  the  girl  had  thrown 
them.  She  had  seen  her.  Where,  how,  had  she  and 
Arnold  got  such  a  treasurable  thing  as  these?  She  kissed 
them  as  she  floatingly  ran  from  the  stage.  Afterward, 
she  carried  them  still  as  she  passed  silently  back  of  it 
seen  by  the  audience,  unseen  by  her  fellow  characters — 
thus  healing  the  dainty  rift  they  had  made  in  the  night's 
white  statue  of  art  with  the  very  wax  of  them  hereby 
poured  into  the  crevice,  and  loving  them  in  her  Camille's 
pathetic  moment  for  the  girl  to  see. 

But  once  more  in  her  dressing-room  she  did  a  very 
different  thing  with  them.  Elise,  who  liked  flowers  at 
least  half  as  much  as  she  liked  birds,  was  mothering  the 
abused  orchids  in  the  worst  fit  of  the  sulks  of  her  whole 
career  with  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  and  Madame  de  1'Etoile 
was  brilliantly  enjoying  these.  To  Madame  de  1'Etoile 
the  orchids  were  to  the  camellias  as  garnets  are  to  white 
sapphires.  She  was  not  willing  to  powder  the  white 
sapphires  as  she  had  powdered  the  garnets,  but  she  lifted 
them — high — and  gave  them  one  safe,  conservative,  but 
horrid-looking  shock  on  the  dressing  table;  and  Elise, 
taken  unaware,  growled.  If  she  had  lashed  her  tail 
among  jungle  plants,  she  could  not  have  made  a  more 
delicious  sound;  but  a  little  sound,  too,  had  escaped  her 
mistress. 

As  the  great  gardenia-white  flowers  separated  under 


348  The  Great  Way 

the  deft  daring  blow,  a  bit  of  paper  had  fallen  from  them, 
and  totally  forgetful  of  Elise  and  her  fascinating  imita- 
tion of  the  zoo,  she  picked  it  up. 

"As  you  have  just  taken  my  breath  away,  so  you  took  my 
breath  away  earlier  this  evening.  I  did  not  know  what  to  say 
to  you!  Madame,  oh,  dear,  dear  Madame,  I  want  you  to  marry 
my  brother !  I  want  you  to ! — MARY." 

Tears,  sad,  surprised,  triumphant  tears  sprang  to 
Wanda's  eyes.  She  closed  them  a  moment,  lifting  the 
virginal  camellias  to  her  face,  a  face  poignant  with  tender 
beauty  as  this  strange  version  of  Camille's  story  rushed 
through  her  heart  to  paint  it  there :  Marguerite's  lover's 
sister — "that  distant  sister,"  Arno  had  called  her — 
begging  the  wayward  one  to  marry  her  brother !  Dios ! .  . . 

"Elise,"  she  said,  the  tears  commanded  away,  "I  can 
sing  La  Traviata !" 

"This  morning's  Matin  said  not,  Madame,"  said  Elise. 

This  news  was  so  piquantly  unexpected  that  Wanda 
dropped  her  lip-stick.  "Well,  well,"  she  silently  reflected, 
"life  will  have  its  revenges  upon  wrong-doing!  I  indeed 
should  never  have  gaven  that  bird-seed!"  But  even  so 
she  was  unwilling  Elise  should  add  up  the  moment's  pause 
she  had  got. 

"A  pretty  young  woman  like  you,  Elise,"  she  said, 
"should  not  read  the  newspapers.  They  print  sensational 
things,  of  which  that  is  a  sample.  You  might  read  of 
your  own  murder  some  morning!  Come,  Elise,  we  both 
know  that  tremendous  ball-dress  is  sensational — for  us  as 
for  the  audience!" 

Her  thoughts  of  Elise  were  widely  different  from  her 
words.  Even  as  this  de  1'Etoile-Dumas-Verdi  lady  of 
camellias  had  waywardly  tormented  Elise  with  them, 
Wanda  had  been  thinking  of  Elise's  happiness,  thinking 
how  she  had  ruined  her  with  indulgence,  thinking  how 
she  might  perhaps  pay  back  for  that  ruination  at  any 
disproportion  of  expenditure.  "It  might  be  possible. 


The  Great  Wayward  One  349 

Yes  .  .  .  with  such  persons  as  Elise,  such  matters  can 
be  done,  and  rightly  enough,  by  money.  .  .  .  And  I  have 
enough  money.  .  .  .  Too  much  money.  .  .  .  Yes,  to- 
morrow." 

Money  .  .  .  Elise  and  money.  ...  It  was  the  last 
thought  of  the  emergent  woman  remerging  into  the 
"Traviata"  as  Wanda,  magnificent  in  huge  black  moon- 
spangled  ball-gown,  sallied  forth  into  the  splendour  and 
the  money-torture  of  her  next  business  with  life.  After 
that,  a  bit  of  business  with  death;  and  then.  .  .  . 

The  last  act  was  over. 

Paris  had  stayed  through  even  the  final  dying  notes 
of  that  act  of  death ;  and  upon  the  silence  of  its  passing 
had  once  more  loosed  its  thunder. 

That  dear  Parisian  noise !  .  .  .  resurrecting  noise, 
resuscitating  noise,  nectar  in  her  collapsible  moment  of 
utter  weariness — weariness  that  she  pushed  aside  as  if 
by  one  swift  gesture  of  her  two  hands,  for  the  right 
facing  of  her  next  business,  the  night's  last,  a  bit  of  death- 
in-life,  she  told  herself  for  the  sake  of  her  love  of  phrases ; 
and  it  was  again  carrying  the  great  camellias,  and  pil- 
lowed too  upon  the  rich  wreck  of  orchids — it  was  so  she 
held  them,  herself  a  brilliant  figure  with  but  the  ghost  of 
tiredness  in  her  eyes — that  she  met  Arno  and  the  pretty, 
eager  girl. 

Arnold  was  poised,  jubilant  at  her  wonder-night  but 
quiet  in  the  turmoil  it  had  brought  him;  and  it  was  the 
girl  whose  excitement  and  anxiety  betrayed  themselves — 
with  a  rather  sweet  frankness,  either  inclusive  or  careless 
of  Arnold  in  her  expulsion  of  them.  It  was  a  swift, 
truthful  glimpse  for  Wanda  of  Mary  Rutgers. 

"Do  me  a  favour,  Madame — no — Wanda.  I'm  so  tired, 
take  me  home  to  the  Ritz  and  go  on  with  Arnold!  Can 
you  imagine  anyone  but  you  being  tired  by  what  you've 
done?" 

Wanda  knew  it  was  sincere  desire — thoughtful,  the 
girl's  best  estimate  of  what  might  help  her  brother. 

So  she  said  simply:     "As  you  will,  for  to-night,  my 


350  The  Great  Way 

dear!"  And  to  Elise,  "The  Ritz."  There  they  dropped 
the  girl ;  at  the  Normandy,  Elise ;  then  at  Wanda's  simple, 
ready  suggestion  "Leg  Boulevards,"  sped  briefly  on  to 
some  big  bright  restaurant  somewhere  along  the  big  curv- 
ing way  of  the  Italiens  and  the  Capucins.  Just  where, 
just  what,  Wanda  never  knew;  whether  the  Riche,  the 
Americains ;  something  of  the  kind,  for  she  had  deliber- 
ately desired  its  kind  of  lights,  its  kind  of  colours. 

And  suddenly,  as  if  the  full  lifting  of  clouds  from  her 
vision  had  drunk  up  for  her  further  ease  even  the  hardest 
— the  one  really  hard — detail  of  this  long,  long  vivid  road- 
mark  evening  of  the  Great  Way,  as  the  wine  diamonded 
between  them  in  the  graceful  festive  glasses,  suddenly 
she  knew  that  Arnold  knew — and  not  from  the  fair  Mary 
Rutgers,  whose  truthful  words,  even  whose  straight  lovely 
eyes,  would  never  have  betrayed  her,  but  from  the 
night  .  .  .  from  herself  this  night.  And  the  fact  made 
easier  the  short,  simple  sentence  that  somehow  through 
the  facets  of  the  night  had  crystallized  itself  for  her  to 
speak  to  him,  and  fortified  her,  though  in  any  case  she 
would  deliberately  have  used  it,  strengthened  her  for  even 
the  word  of  caress  with  its  possible  fleeting  instant-frac- 
tion of  dangerous  mislead: 

"Arno  dear,  I  am  sorry  that  I  wore  the  rosary  to- 
night." 

Nor  could  she  remember  afterward,  any  more  than  the 
name  of  the  place,  just  what  his  replying  words  had  been 
— only  their  lights,  their  colours.  Though  she  had  known, 
with  her  combined  experience  and  divination  of  him,  that 
he  would  be  brave,  kind,  tender  of  her,  non-protestant, 
she  knew  now  only  the  rare  colour,  rare  light,  of  it  all; 
only  that  she  had  never  before  either  experienced  or 
divined  how  brave,  how  gentle,  how  unasking. 

And  there  followed,  in  clear,  undevious  words  from 
her,  because  they  could,  because  the  creative  mood  of  the 
night  upon  her  continued  now  in  her  huge  weariness  as 
muscular  overaction  can  continue  in  sleep,  a  swift,  fruit- 
ful, few-lined  graphic  map  of  what  she  hoped  for — their 


The  Great  Wayward  One  851 

love  as  friends,  their  contact  as  before,  and  as  soon,  as 
much,  as  he  was  willing  for ;  fruitful,  because  he  took  what 
she  proffered,  took,  thereby  giving.  And  in  her  gladness 
at  that,  she  went  backward  a  little,  told  him  a  little,  the 
little  that  was  right,  of  the  little  she  was  able,  of  causes : 
the  lifting  of  mist  from  about  her  right  perception ;  inner 
mist,  because  life  itself  for  her  had  been  very  simple,  if 
but  the  vision  had  been  simple  too ;  the  clarity  of  that  per- 
ception now.  She  did  not  tell  details;  they  would  have 
been  cruel :  the  parakeets ;  the  wearing  of  the  rosary  in- 
tentionally, not  carelessly,  and  of  intention  of  gladness  for 
him;  but  again  a  small  trenchant  map  of  leading  lines 
displayed  the  intermediate  wrong  and  the  concluding 
righteousness  of  her. 

There  was  no  cant  in  her  philosophy;  there  had  been 
none  in  her  proposal  of  dear  friendship,  straight  as  that 
had  looked  at,  warmly  grasped,  very  simple,  time-lined 
sentiment.  Perhaps  one  sentence  of  her  told  the  most 
important  of  it  all:  "You  see,  Arno  dear,  I  knew  finally, 
that  it  would  not  have  been  truthfulness,  as  truthfulness 
appears  to  me  to  be;  it  somehow  seems  not  meant  that 
I  should  ever  be  someone  very  far  away,  and  at  once 
very  long  away,  from  what  seems  truthfulness." 

"No,  Wanda,"  he  said  in  simple,  very  deep  agreement. 

That  seemed  to  base  them,  take  away  all  confusion; 
to  end  something,  begin  something;  and  consonant  with 
the  night  as  if  she  were  still  La  Traviata,  she  asked  him 
to  send  for  more  champagne.  It  should  baptize  their  new 
era,  though  she  did  not  say  so;  and  in  their  wait  for 
it,  calmly  she  leant  across  the  table,  serenely  indifferent 
to  the  bright  gay  place  as  she  had  been  in  entering  with 
Wanda  de  1'Etoile  written  all  over  her  in  camellias  and 
orchids,  brought  his  face  toward  her  with  her  two  hands, 
and  kissed  his  forehead. 

Over  the  new  yellow  diamonds,  and"  with  a  pensive  look 
abrood  in  her  eyes,  her  great  night  swerved  toward  an 
end  for  them  in  a  little  reversion  of  her  to  the  causes 
again,  but  differently  now,  for  it  was  confiding,  somewhat, 


852  The  Great  Way 

confiding  a  little  of  some  of  the  groping  that  still  remained 
for  her,  just  a  touch  of  this  from  dear  friend  to  dear 
friend. 

"It  has  something — much — to  do  with  a  big  word, 
Arno.  You  have  in  English  a  big,  curious  word — 
Sophistication.  It  is  a  word  easy  to  understand — at  first. 
I  grasped  it  quickly.  And  in  that  quick  meaning,  it 
concerned  me  in  Nueva  York.  Almost  all  of  me  there, 
was  that  word.  My  temptation  away  from  truthfulness 
grew  from  so  very  much  in  me  of  what  that  word  is. 
But  it  was  not  throughout  me.  No.  It  is  something 
I  should  have  in  me  to  an  extent.  You  have  a  right 
extent  of  it.  It  is  a  thing  of  some  rightness,  and  of 
much  fascination.  Well,  in  my  fascination  by  the  'word, 
I  found  it  out  more  fully,  and  at  more  trouble  than  with 
most  words,  too.  And  thereby,  I  found  out  properties 
in  it  that  are  as  dangerous  as  the  thing  itself.  Perhaps 
you  have  never  thought  of  them.  Well,  philosophy  is 
the  seeking  of  wisdom — the  seeking  or  the  love — what 
difference?  A  wonderful  word,  a  wonderful  thing.  And 
a  sophist  was  a  philosopher,  but  only  of  a  certain  kind. 
I  learned  much  when  I  had  got  back  to  that  word  sophist. 
Can  you  be  patient  with  my  dictions,  Arno?  Anyway, 
I  have  learned  many  slangs  while  I  am  in  New  York, 
and  one  of  them,  a  remarkable  slang,  is  sheister.  And 
that  is  just  what  a  sophist  was — a  sheister  philosopher. 
And  it  all  arrives  to  this,  that  woman  I  was,  or  was 
trying  to  be,  in  Nueva  York,  and  all:  that  whatever 
worldliness  I  had  came  to,  and  whatever  all  of  it  I  may 
keep  underneath,  I  do  not  think  that  I  am  a  sheister 
philosopher,  Arno." 

He  smiled — the  old  Nueva  York  smile  that  seemed  to 
be  indigenous  to  discussions  of  language. 

"No,  dear,"  he  said,  "I'm  quite  sure  you  are  not  a 
sheister  philosopher !" 

"And "  she  said,  and  an  impulsive,  happily  im- 
pulsive and  vitally  eager  thought  exclusive  to  this  night 


The  Great  Wayward  One  353 

notched  it  once  more  for  them,  "and — you  will  paint 
another  portrait  of  me,  Arno?" 

"Yes— dear." 

"And  it  shall  be — now  that  so  suddenly  it  can  be, 
Arno — it  shall  be — La  Traviata?" 

And  bravely  over  his  night,  all  the  gladness  that  could 
be  in  eyes  so  stricken,  kindled. 


CHAPTER    XXXV 

CONTRITION 

CONTRITION,  confession,  absolution. 

It  was  to  a  subconscious  rhythm  of  these  golden  words 
that  Wanda  stirred  in  the  fairly  early  sunlight — for  it 
was  by  prearrangement  with  this  second  golden  matter 
that  she  was  awakened,  through  leaving  undrawn  some  of 
her  window-curtains  the  night  before.  It  streamed  in 
across  her  bed  at  a  particular  angle,  and  from  the  rue  de 
1'Echelle,  for  though  it  had  first  arrived  at  the  Normandy 
from  the  natural  general  direction  of  the  Bourse — a  soft 
word  about  hard  matters  with  always  a  poignant  memory 
for  her — and  the  Comique — a  word  with  for  her  nothing 
comic,  because  here  had  been  one  of  her  very  first  really 
great  opera  experiences  (aside  from  their  own)  with  her 
Maestro — her  desire  for  this  morning  had  not  been  to  be 
roused  by  it  quite  so  soon  as  would  be  from  these  quarters, 
and  the  open  curtains  were  therefore  those  to  the  little 
Street  of  the  Ladder;  to  her  a  vividly  suggestive  name 
absorbed  and  pondered  by  her  in  her  first,  strange  visit 
to  Paris,  when  her  mistily  brooding  eyes  had  drunk  in  so 
much  that  she  never  spoke,  and  a  name  that  would  alone 
have  called  her  back  to  the  Normandy  if  thoughts  of 
Dona  Rina  had  not  been  call  enough.  .  .  . 

Contrition.  .  .  .  Confession.  .  .  .  Absolution.  ...  A 
churchly  trinity,  yet  recurrent  and  beautifully  musical  to 
Wanda  who  frankly  named  herself  unchurchly.  .  .  .  Con- 
trition, complete  if  possible;  and  an  approach  to  com- 
pletion had  indeed  been  yesterday  .  .  .  last  night.  So 
ran  her  gradually  quickening  sun-stirred  thoughts,  like  a 
little  chain  of  golden  links  running  backward  into  their 

354 


Contrition  355 

welding  to  some  childish  teaching,  harsh  then,  lyrical  now, 
and  forward,  into  this  day,  which  must  be  made  as  won- 
derful a  day  as  yesterday  had  been  a  great,  a  wonderful 
night.  .  .  .  Confession ;  that  would  be,  this  afternoon,  at 
four  o'clock,  to  her  Maestro,  who  at  four  o'clock  would 
be  four  hundred  and  four  years  old  in  gentleness  and 
understanding.  .  .  .  Absolution ;  this,  too,  would  be  from 
him,  presumably — from  him  who  of  all  the  world  alone 
(barring  one  distant,  ah,  how  longed-for  friend,  and  to 
whom  indeed,  if  possibility  were,  the  confession  were  due !) 
could  comprehend  her  in  a  matter  so  sacramental.  .  .  . 
Contrition,  confession,  absolution.  And  the  most  beau- 
tiful of  these  is  contrition. 

But  before  this  spiritual  matter  at  four  o'clock,  was 
work  to  do,  hence  this  notable  prearrangement  with  the 
curtains  looking  to  the  rue  de  1'Echelle  so  drenched  with 
climbing  symbol  as  with  climbing  sunlight;  and  work  far 
off,  if  very  strictly  looked  at,  from  any  such  doings  as 
contrition,  confession,  absolution.  For  indeed,  her  morn- 
ing's task  comprised  a  deep-laid  plot,  a  thing  of  polity, 
diplomacy — by  implication,  poisonous,  which  subornation 
in  though  its  mildest  forms,  and  though  by  whatever 
means,  in  its  last  analysis  undeniably  is. 

And  to  just  such  an  end  Wanda,  with  Elise's  help, 
dressed  early — uncommonly  so,  for  an  after-opera  morn- 
ing, and  even  for  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  uncommonly  well. 
Therefore  it  was  about  only  one  minute  more  than  eleven 
o'clock,  and  Wanda  was  only  about  one  degree  less  beau- 
tiful than  an  angel,  when  she  appeared  before  the  hotel 
desk  and  began  her  blandishments. 

Her  very  first  was  partly  ingenuous,  for  she  founded 
it  on  a  rumour  that  the  simple  word  "clerk"  had  a  special 
pronunciation  for  the  British  Islands,  and  consequently 
she  addressed  the  desk  clerk  as  "Mister  Clark,"  because 
he  was  English,  and  thinking  to  please  him — which,  in- 
cidentally, it  enormously  did. 

She  had  purposely  not  seen  his  face  last  night,  but 
had  reason  to  remember  well  his  voice,  and  found  her 


856  The  Great  Way 

day  well  augered  by  the  fact  that  it  was  indeed  this  same 
clerk  that  was  on  duty  this  morning.  And  within  a 
remarkably  short  time  after  her  salutation  she  achieved 
data  whereby  she  realized  that  if  she  so  much  succeeded 
in  her  ensuing  errand  that  an  acquaintanceship,  casually 
not  unimaginable,  as  well  as  her  object,  happened  to  be 
provoked  by  it,  she  would  have  added  to  the  very  slender 
peerage  department  of  her  calling-list.  For  the  owner  of 
the  parakeets,  she  had  learned,  was  nor  less  nor  other 
than  the  Countess  d'Orancy. 

Furthermore,  she  knew  from  this  delightful  "Mr. 
Clark,"  that  Madame  la  Comtesse  was  an  American,  and 
her  baptismal  name  Paulownia;  with  addendum  that  she 
was  absolutely  the  only  American  (or  if  not  quite  that, 
Wanda  judged,  at  least  one  of  the  very  few  million  Ameri- 
cans) who  had  ever  gotten  so  much  as  one  golden  hoof 
inside  the  real — the  survivant  and  actual — Faubourg  St. 
Germain.  She  knew  the  floor,  direction,  and  number  of 
the  countess's  suite ;  and,  most  important,  that  unmolested 
she  might  go  there,  in  line  with  her  proceeding  last  night 
at  the  Richelieu,  unannounced,  regardless  not  only  of  the 
general  hotel  rule,  but  of  the  additional  private  and  per- 
sonal and  adamant  very  particular  rule  of  this  very 
particular  countess.  She  had  learned  with  certainty,  as 
indeed  she  had  surmised  before  she  came  downstairs,  that 
"Mr.  Clark"  was  not  in  love  with  this  countess,  because 
of  that  same  violent  scolding  that  he  had  got  so  con- 
spicuously in  public  last  night ;  and  had  gleaned  that,  on 
the  other  hand,  "Mr.  Clark"  was  by  now  quite  as  defin- 
itely in  love  with  herself,  so  that  she  had  caught  herself 
considering  just  which  role  she  would  seem  prettiest  in 
to  the  very  young,  to  give  him  tickets  for;  while  as  for 
her  nefarious  undertaking,  she  could  go  forward  with  it 
assured  that  her  admirer,  "Mr.  Clark,"  would,  in  case  of 
fire,  for  instance,  any  such  dido  as  the  countess  had 
clipped  up  in  the  lobby  last  night,  take  all  blame  upon 
his  own  shoulders,  indeed,  tell  any  lie  whatever  for 
Madame  de  1'Etoile,  such  as  that  himself  in  person  had 


Contrition  357 

taken  her  card  and  explanation  of  her  mission  to  another 
suite,  and  given  them  to  a  thin,  beautiful  young  woman  in 
mistake  for  the  countess. 

As  Madame  de  1'Etoile  went  thus  fortified  upon  her 
buoyant  way,  tabulating  her  data  and  her  advantages, 
Paulownia  seemed  to  her  a  most  lovely  name.  She  did 
not  know  as  yet  (quite  likely  because  "Mr.  Clark"  him- 
self did  not  know)  that  it  belonged  along  with  Daisy  in 
the  botany  rather  than  the  peerage  department,  signify- 
ing a  tree  that  for  a  very  brief  season  blooms  luxuriant 
lavender  blossoms  and  then  for  the  rest  of  the  year  drops 
garbage  all  over  the  Southern  United  States,  and  espe- 
cially all  over  Virginia.  "Paulownia"  sounded  stately  and 
beautiful  to  Wanda,  and  she  assumed  it  a  derivative  of 
Paul;  while  the  suggestion  of  Virginia  added  to  it  led 
her  imagination,  as  she  ascended  peerageward  in  the  lift, 
to  visualize  helplessly  the  stout  little  countess  as  prancing 
rudely  naked  through  a  wood  in  a  storm,  with  a  gentle- 
man, likewise  immodest  or  thoughtless,  prancing  beside 
her,  and  a  useless  if  artistic  fabric  flapping  over  their 
heads.  And  this  hapless  instance  of  her  reckless  tendency 
toward  association  of  ideas  brought  her  up  short  before 
the  countess's  door,  in  a  moment  of  distinct  pause  to 
control  it  and  at  least  temporarily  do  away  with  it  for  the 
proper  furtherance  of  her  purpose,  which  was  no  more 
nor  less  than  by  any  means  short  of  positively  foul  to 
achieve,  acquire,  possess,  own  and  thereupon  irrevocably 
depart  with,  those  parakeets. 

With  the  countess  reconstructed  along  the  plump, 
clothed  lines  of  last  night's  angle-hatted  vision  of  her, 
and  bulwarked  by  thoughts  of  first  aid,  in  event  of  phys- 
ical jeopardy,  from  that  entrancing,  that  positively  cdbal- 
lero  Clark  Esquire,  Madame  de  1'Etoile  knocked ;  and  was 
replied  to  by  the  starchy  train  of  last  night's  pageant, 
the  spick  maid  of  span  similarity  to  Elise. 

Madame  was  conducted  in  without  furore;  and  with 
her  name  deposited  orally  on  this  maid,  quite  casually  as 
if  its  engraven  tablet  had  preceded  it,  was  left  alone.  She 


358  The  Great  Way 

discerned  chiefly,  rising  among  knick-knacks,  what-nots, 
and  other  trash-basket  elements  of  the  dictionary,  a  mag- 
nificent piano,  with  a  hoary  name  that  spelled  perfection 
of  its  period,  the  kind  of  piano  that  people  are  born  and 
brought  up  on,  and  that  seemed  to  her  to  be  dreaming  that 
it  dwelt  in  marble  halls,  and  about  to  talk  in  its  sleep  of 
how  much  nicer  Rigoletto  is  in  English  than  in  Italian, 
for  example,  where  it  says  "Over  the  Summer  Sea"  in 
place  of  "Women  are  Unreliable" ;  and  just  as  it  did  turn 
over  on  its  elbow  and  mumble  to  her  that  it  was  part  of 
the  countess's  trousseau  and  had  come  to  Paris  with  her 
in  a  sailing-packet,  its  mistress  (doubtless  its  mistress 
with  a  naughty  little-finger  always  high  in  air  if  the  other 
one  had  to  be  touching  it)  interrupted  the  singer's  reverie 
in  person,  and  without  a  single  naughty-mistress-motion 
about  her. 

She  was  hatless,  which  astonishingly  lessened  her  por- 
tentousness;  her  cracked  enamel  was  much  pinker  and 
more  cobweb-like  by  sunlight;  and  the  more  than  ever 
rotund  little  temple  of  her  soul  was  habited  to-day  by  a 
tight-fitting  dress  of  huge  Scotch  plaid. 

She  had  exquisite  manners,  and  spoke  exquisite  French, 
in  a  high,  tinkling  voice  that  had  not  a  syllabic  dissonance 
anywhere  in  it,  and  that  had  made  even  the  rowdy  rattle 
of  last  night  a  sort  of  corrupt,  a  la  mode  music.  Her 
little  pink  hands  appropriately  wore  marquise  rings,  and 
suggested  that  she  had  somewhere  about,  though  not 
to  be  let  loose  in  the  morning,  a  pet  diamond  turtle. 
She  sat  full  in  the  streaming  sunlight  despite  its  gossip 
about  her  enamel,  the  little  hands  folded  every  time  be- 
tween each  two  French  gestures,  and  on  the  edge  of  her 
chair,  her  little  back  so  straight  that  Wanda's,  similarly 
postured  because  she  was  a  guest,  and  an  unbidden  one 
at  that,  began  to  ache  from  the  psychology  of  it.  Obvi- 
ously Madame  the  Countess  had  assumed  that  the  mission 
of  the  interesting  and  beautiful  woman  before  her  had 
not  been  wound  upon  horns  in  advance  through  some 
new  villiany  (which  was  quite  true)  of  that  saucy  clerk 


Contrition  359 

downstairs;  but  no  urge  or  overt  expectancy  came  from 
her,  while  it  was  also  quite  as  obvious  that  she  expected 
illumination  in  due  time. 

"Now,  why  is  that  woman  a  lady,  and  why  am  I  not 
one?"  thought  Wanda  transiently,  and  with  a  transient 
sigh — equally  transient,  because  it  sprang  from  a  brand 
of  thoughts  that  in  all  innocent  unconsciousness  phrase 
themselves  as  truths,  while  subconsciously  they  auto- 
matically function  as  lies.  Facts.  .  .  .  Truth.  .  .  » 
That  mysterious,  sublime,  eternal  difference!  .  .  . 

The  two  ladies  had  begun,  and  were  continuing,  to 
discuss  and  to  a  fair  proportion  of  agreement  settle, 
various  matters  of  concern  to  the  State,  if  not  the  Uni- 
verse: That  it  was  how  very  pleasant  to  live  in  Paris, 
especially  with  spring  in  the  air — that  anticipatory  sense ! 
— and  especially,  too,  at  the  Normandy.  That  indeed, 
the  Normandy  was  very  charming,  and  fairly  set  up,  ex- 
cept that  living  in  any  hotel,  any,  there  were  always,  and 
indeed  must  be,  one  admits,  hotel  clerks.  True,  but,  wellv 
there  were  Clerks  and  Clarks.  The  one  downstairs  was 
handsome, — surprisingly  so.  Handsome?  Possibly,  yes, 
but  saucy.  Very  saucy.  Oh?  Well,  handsome  people 
were  more  likely  to  be  saucy — the  world  spoils  them  more. 
Doubtless  one  got  more  from  people,  if  one  were  hand- 
some. And  a  propos  of  that,  how  very  handsome,  on 
the  whole,  American  people  were,  Madame  de  1'Etoile  hav- 
ing just  come  from  a  visit  to  the  United  States,  bringing 
away  with  her  that  impression — good-looking,  that  was, 
in  such  a  varied  way,  and  especially  the  women,  as  com- 
pared, for  instance,  with  madame's  own  race,  the  Spanish, 
who  were  apt  to  be  of  but  one  pattern  of  good-looks,  or 
with  Frenchwomen,  the  best-dressed  in  the  world — variety 
there — but  uniformly  homely.  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  with 
her  happy  memories  of  the  appearance  of  Americans,  in- 
deed planned  to  return  to  the  United  States,  and  to  travel 
more,  especially  to  the  South,  about  which  she  had  enor- 
mous curiosity — as  yet  entirely  unsatisfied,  beyond  ac- 
quaintance with  one  product  from  there,  which  chanced  to 


360  The  Great  Way 

have  come,  by  the  way,  from  Richmond,  Virginia,  an  ex- 
traordinary article  for  the  toilet,  named  "Lovers'  Kisses 
Soap,"  which  Madame  did  not  favour  herself,  because  of 
the  nature  and  quantity  of  the  scent  in  it,  but  of  which 
she  had  given  a  gross  to  her  music-teacher. 

And  here  Wanda,  who  had  in  truth  become  almost  as 
fascinated  by  the  delightful  countess  as  "Mr.  Clark" 
below  stairs  had  been  by  herself,  and  borne  so  favourably 
onward  by  her  subject  of  the  rumoured  South  in  general, 
clasped  her  hands  forward  with  a  most  earnest  exclama- 
tion: 

"Tell  me,  are  you  a  cruller?" 

After  a  moment's  interval  of  bewilderment,  following 
all  too  soon  on  her  recovery  from  a  passing  fear  that  this 
fascinating  visitor  had  come  to  sell  Lovers'  Kisses  Soap, 
the  countess  replied  that  she  was  not  a  cruller;  nor  a 
mulatto,  nor  an  octroon,  nor  a  coal-black  negress.  "Nor," 
she  concluded  with  clarity  and  startling  suddenness,  "any 
other  kind  of  a  Spaniard,  either!" 

Wanda  reflected  that  any  chance  devastation  she  had 
wrought  to  her  hostess's  feelings  had  been  repaid  in 
sorts,  and  more  than  repaid ;  but  she  swiftly  reflected  also 
that  she  was  a  voluntary  guest,  and  with  a  design  re- 
quiring philosophy  to  boot  with  skill ;  and  further,  that  a 
battle  got  under  way  without  declaration  of  purpose 
was  part  way  to  loss  already,  and  that  unless  she  seized 
this  moment  for  attack  her  moments  would  be  few,  and 
no  more  than  sufficient  to  retire  with  grace  upon  some 
ignominious  lie  that  would  save  both  herself  and  her 
Caballero  Clark,  and  withal  no  loot  to  lull  it. 

Therefore  with  a  swift  batter  of  words  upon  the  un- 
wary enemy,  engaging,  colourful,  of  trenchant  phrases 
and  vivid  side-lights  upon  its  extreme  spiritual  import  to 
her,  she  unfolded  her  errand,  its  practical  phases  to  com- 
prise, on  the  one  side,  her  taking  away  of  the  parakeets; 
on  the  other,  her  leaving  with  the  countess  something  in 
their  place ;  anything,  that  was,  except  the  vulgar  product 
money,  which  of  course  she  knew  could  not  procure  such 


Contrition  361 

parakeets,  unless,  indeed,  in  sheer  graciousness  the  coun- 
tess would  stoop  to  the  seeming  of  such  vulgarity  to  the 
extent  of  something  she  might,  on  sheer  principle,  have 
done  herself  without  this  winter,  instance  a  new  piano,  or 
a  motor  car;  but  more  likely,  as  Madame  de  1'Etoile 
scarcely  expected  any  such  whimsical  chivalry  of  friend- 
ship from  the  countess  to  a  stranger,  some  jewel  of 
Madame's,  except,  of  course,  such  as  might  be  very 
significant  and  personal  gifts,  any  of  her  jewels  at  all,  of 
which  she  had  worn  many,  as  many  as  the  hour,  taste, 
and  her  gown  had  allowed,  while  there  were  many  more 
upstairs. 

The  countess  gazed  at  her — stared.  And  for  an  end- 
less-seeming time  that  stare  was  all  she  did,  and  all  she 
seemed  to  be.  Nor  was  it  a  rude,  or  haughty,  or  even 
angry  stare.  In  all  its  expanse  of  enamel-pink  and  ex- 
pansion of  Daisy-blue  Peerage  eyes  its  only  element  was 
astonishment ;  astonishment  that  left  no  room  for  any 
iother  emotion,  until,  through  some  sudden  mental  occur- 
rence, one  more  quality  entered  it — anxiety,  that  grew 
to  alarm,  and  that  Madame  de  1'Etoile  could  not  at  once 
understand,  but  that  alarmed  her,  in  turn,  but  not  soon 
enough,  so  that  quite  suddenly  and  with  no  preventive,  a 
disconcerting  thing  happened. 

Without  one  sound,  the  countess  fell  not  backward, 
but  forward,  and  rolled  face  first  downward,  and  then 
upward,  on  the  floor. 

Madame  de  1'Etoile  remained  for  one  moment  frozen 
at  the  abrupt  debacle  effect  of  her  morning's  campaign, 
her  thoughts  leaping  naturally  to  Mr.  Clark,  discarding 
him  for  this  kind  of  emergency  and  leaping  on  to  Elise, 
whom  she  knew  to  be  undeniably  excellent  for  sick  people 
after  Elise  had  made  them  sick,  and  then,  as  it  was  not 
Elise  who  had  made  the  countess  sick,  on  again  by  asso- 
ciation of  ideas  to  the  fallen  peeress's  own  starched  maid, 
the  logical  first  aid  now ;  and  she  sped  gazelle-like  in  that 
aid's  direction. 

Together  they  bestowed  the  golden  head  on  a  hand- 


362  The  Great  Way 

painted  pillow,  and  together  undertook  further  ministra- 
tions, some  from  bottles,  Wanda  guilefully  omitting  any 
mention  of  cause  of  disaster,  and  skilfully  filling  her  share 
of  the  conversation  with  exclamatory  sorrow  for  its  oc- 
currence, and  on  her  part  Margot — her  new  comrade's 
name — the  while  she  sponged  her  mistress  as  busily 
soothed  their  visitor,  assuring  her  that  this  had  been 
known  to  happen,  though  in  her  own  experience,  to  be 
sure,  only  once  before,  and  that  upon  Madame  la  Com- 
tesse's  receipt  of  the  news  of  Ladislas's  marriage.  And 
despite  their  sad  occupation,  Wanda  could  not  help  not- 
ing how  further  reminiscent  of  Elise  this  Margot  was,  for 
whereas  Elise  was  so  monosyllabic  and  Margot  so  pre- 
eminently the  reverse,  the  diction  of  this  Margot,  written 
down,  would  have  served  Elise  with  a  worthy  successor 
to  "A  Modest  Passion." 

Ladislas,  it  seemed,  was  the  Count,  Madame  la  Com- 
tesse's  son,  in  the  Consular  Service  of  his  country,  with 
a  history  of  notable  appointments  including  Madrid,  until 
his  marriage,  when,  or  scandalously  shortly  after  when, 
he  had  been  sent  to  batten  on  the  moors  (Margot  evidently 
assumed  they  were  Moors)  of  Guatemala,  and  kindred 
districts — from  some  one  of  which  the  parakeets  had  been 
sent  to  the  countess,  a  tender  but  a  tactless  present, 
pointing  out  as  it  did  some  jungular  and  noisesome  neigh- 
bourhood to  the  countess's  already  over-sensitive  vision, 
which  however  had  but  made  the  parakeets  the  dearer  to 
the  sweet,  pure,  maternal  countess.  Wonderful,  ever  won- 
derful to  Margot  the  fruits  and  fair  flowers  of  maternal 
love.  As  for  Ladislas,  he,  a  splendid  diplomat,  had  yet 
been  slow  to  learn  the  statute  of  his  personal  limitations, 
and  on  the  presumptive  strength  of  his  title  had  over- 
shot for  an  American  fortune,  starting  with  Mathilde 
Morris,  and  when  she  would  none  of  him,  taking,  foolish- 
virgin-wise,  an  interval  at  the  joys  of  bachelorhood  again 
before  trying  for  Marjorie  Temple,  who  at  the  period 
when  he  tried  for  Mathilde,  would  unquestionably  have 
«*eized  gladly  upon  him,  and  so  on  and  so  on,  always  just  a 


Contrition  363 

rung  too  high  for  his  contemporary  age  and  novelty,  until, 
when  he  was  finally  actually  pushed  in  the  face  by  Jasmine 
Nussbaum  of  Los  Angeles,  he  had  reverted  to  Paris  and 
fallen  upon  evil  days  and  worse  nights  in  the  form  of  one 
Fifi,  of  the  Moulin  Rouge.  Not  that  Ladislas  was  a  dis- 
solute count — quite  the  contrary;  so  that  even  so,  in 
Margot's  opinion,  all  might  have  yet  been  well,  but  for 
his  very  act  of  honourably  marrying  Fifi ;  for  it  was  his 
carrying  Fifi  about  with  him  as  a  countess  that  had  got 
him  hastened  from  Madrid  to  Guatemala ;  while  as  for  the 
real  countess,  although,  pure,  lovely  lady  as  she  was,  she 
has  disapproved  of  Fifi  from  the  start,  it  was  only  upon 
learning  of  the  holy  wedlock  that  she  had  passed  into  a 
swoon,  and — Margot  thus  reassured  Madame  de  1'Etoile 
once  more  as  to  the  present  misfortune — not  so  quietly, 
that  other  time,  either,  but  after  a  scream  that  pierced 
the  Great  White  Throne  of  Heaven.  Quite  likely  this 
present  less  important  swoon,  Margot  thought,  consider- 
ing the  polite  silence  of  it  all  and  all,  had  come  from 
Madame  de  1'Etoile  having  reminded  her  in  some  way  of 
Fifi. 

Unflattering  as  this  theory,  quite  unintentionally, 
might  be,  the  correct  one,  which  Wanda  after  her  first 
disconcertion  had  grasped  swiftly  and  fully,  was  in  a  way 
even  more  so — namely,  the  countess's  conviction  that  she 
was  a  dangerous  lunatic.  It  was  not  the  first  time,  of 
course,  that  Madame  de  1'Etoile  had  been  mistaken  for  a 
maniac;  but  the  previous  occasion  she  had  purposely 
gone  to,  as  a  matter  of  expediency,  while  this  one  ap- 
peared as  a  likely  ruin  of  her  object.  Still,  her  divina- 
tion at  least  mapped  in  advance  her  course  of  behaviour 
when  the  countess  should  revive,  and  the  lady's  uncon- 
sciousness meantime  had  led  to  helpful  knowledge  of  her 
history ;  and  as  if  the  chances  of  active  battle  were  indeed 
shaping  in  Wanda  the  Adventuress's  favour,  Margot  had 
just  nicely  completed  serving  up  her  delicious  dish  of  dirt 
when  the  royalty  sat  bolt  upright,  as  suddenly  and  as 
straight  of  back  as  if  she  never  had  collapsed  supine  in 


364  The  Great  Way 

Morpheus's  embrace,  except  that  she  was  sitting  on  the 
floor  instead  of  on  the  chair. 

Mentally,  she  was  as  yet  less  stable.  Her  memories 
of  recent  events  were  kaleidoscopic.  And  discerning  this, 
Wanda  swept  ahead  of  Margot  into  the  breach,  lifted  her, 
soothed  and  smelling-bottled  her  so  gracefully  and  ten- 
derly as  to  eradicate  all  perturbing  signs  in  herself  of 
dangerous  mania,  and  even  as  she  groped  for  a  safe 
subject  of  re-entering  talk,  the  very  happiest  of  chances 
fell  from  Margot,  who  if  she  did  not  read  the  newspapers 
anyhow  looked  at  the  pictures,  and  who  now  paid  back 
Wanda  for  her  own  maid's  cup  of  newspaper  poison  last 
night  by  innocently  letting  fall  a  reference  to  the  lovely 
guest  being  an  opera  singer. 

And  at  this  a  second  change,  abrupt  and  revolutioniz- 
ing as  the  swoon  had  been,  came  over  the  countess.  The 
parakeets  were  forgotten.  So  was  Margot,  who  chastely 
withdrew.  And  illuminant  as  had  been  the  genre  tableau 
of  the  night  before,  a  swift  flashing  life-history  was  dis- 
closed to  Wanda — a  long,  briefly  told,  only  half-con- 
sciously  betrayed  pathetic  history  of  a  woman  who  could 
have  sung  .  .  .  save  that  .  .  .  who  had  wanted  to 
sing  .  .  .  save  that.  .  .  .  No  wonder,  thought  Madame 
de  1'Etoile,  as  from  almost  no  words  whatever  she  saw 
and  understood  it  all,  no  wonder  the  memory-spirit  of  a 
prima  donna  had  auraed  that  fat  little  body  as  it  sput- 
tered its  dulcet  anger  in  the  lobby.  And  as  she  felt,  from 
a  little  contraction  in  her  throat,  the  first  warning  of 
tears,  she  staved  them  away  by  asking  the  countess  if  she 
would  like  to  have  her  sing  a  little — right  now. 

The  Countess  d'Orancy  would;  and  Wanda  swiftly 
went  to  the  piano,  strolled  her  fingers  over  it  for  a  hint 
of  its  timbre,  and  then  let  her  voice  into  "The  Girls  of 
Cadiz,"  the  first  thing  she  always  thought  of  for  special 
or  emergency  occasions.  There  were  a  little  startlement 
of  the  Normandy  room  at  the  measure  of  the  golden  voice, 
a  little  startlement  of  the  long-disused  old  instrument; 
but  presently  all  was  atune;  presently  after,  she  had 


Contrition  365 

slipped  by  similar  instinct,  and  without  interim,  into 
Debussy's  "Mandoline"  ...  a  brief  heaven — to  Wanda, 
anyway,  always — at  whose  end  she  glanced  over  her 
shoulder  with  some  question  as  to  a  choice,  only  to  ques- 
tion and  to  look  no  more,  for  sight  of  that  little  bolt-up 
weeping  countess,  gazing  and  weeping,  weeping  and  gaz- 
ing,jsimply  could  not  be  borne,  and  music  too.  And  she 
stuck  to  music. 

She  sang  for  an  hour;  Trauiata — so  soon  again,  when 
she  had  thought,  and  planned,  it  should  be  long  before 
again  ;  Juliette — her  waltz ;  Caro  Nome ;  rambling,  a  very 
Spaniard,  unconscious  though  so  intentional,  wandering, 
stopping  at  any  shop-window  of  song,  hither  and  yon, 
anything;  everything;  and  forgetful  of  everything,  except 
what  she  was  doing,  and  her  love  of  doing  it. 

And  at  the  end  of  the  hour,  the  countess  sent  her  home. 

She  knew  something  about  singing,  this  Countess 
Paulownia ;  and  the  remark  that  Margot  had  dropped  had 
been  something  about  Madame  de  1'Etoile  having  sung 
at  the  Opera  the  night  before. 

"Because,  you  see,  you  will  be  coming  again  soon, 
my  dear,  will  you  not?'*  she  explained  as  she  lifted  her 
tear-swollen  face  for  Wanda  to  kiss  good-bye.  "You 
have  promised  me  that,  haven't  you?" 

Wanda  promised  again ;  and  searching  her  eyes,  and 
assured  of  it,  the  little  up-gazing  countess  fetched  some- 
thing from  behind  her  straight  up-and-down  little  back. 
It  was  the  cage  of  birds  who  could  not  sing. 

In  the  corridor,  through  a  long  moment  exactly  as 
before  she  passed  the  door  inward-bound,  Wanda  stood 
collective — collective  in  an  almost  guilty  sense,  in  one 
great  particular — and  again  with  a  vision  of  the  countess 
to  dispel,  but  so  very  different  a  one:  fully  clothed,  in 
absurdly  large-scaled  plaid,  and  of  piteous,  tear-washed 
enamel.  But  except  for  the  moment,  when  she  needed 
it  entirely  away  from  her  spirits,  she  wanted  to  dispel 
it — and  she  would — very,  very  gradually,  and  through 
many  hours  of  that  coming  Paris  springtime.  When  those 


366  The  Great  Way 

birds  in  their  exquisite  conical  cottage  had  appeared  from 
behind  that  Scotch  plaid  back,  she  had  had  an  instant's 
violent  reaction,  a  desire  to  hurl  her  crest  of  battle-tide 
in  spray  to  the  four  winds;  but  she  remembered  that  she 
had  had  a  delicately  yet  deeply  esoteric  purpose  in  her 
design,  a  purpose  with  a  motive  of  deep  love  in  it,  a 
spiritual  impulsion  that  carried  its  chivalric  whimsicality 
into  the  profound,  to  the  exact  measurement  that  it  had 
carried  herself  to  the  heights;  and  sheer  justice  itself 
urged  upon  this  that  she  now  could  pay  for  the  birds  as 
nothing  her  barter  had  proffered  could  have  done — no 
jewel  of  hers,  or  number  of  jewels ;  while  there  were  plenty 
of  motor  cars  left  in  the  world,  if  her  own  failed,  which 
it  certainly  would  not  do,  to  serve  for  that  same  Printemps 
de  Paris,  while  that  old  piano,  with  its  spinet-like  voice, 
would  serve  well  enough  too — with  her  own  voice  added 
to  it !  ... 

Therefore  with  the  completion  of  her  whirling  cycle  of 
thoughts  and  her  eyes  ashine  with  the  happy  triumph  of 
her  first  mission-labour  of  this  wonderful  day,  she  pro- 
ceeded loot-wreathed  to  the  lift,  wherein,  however,  she 
said  "Down!"  instead  of  her  intended  "Up!",  because 
Daisy,  least  of  all  in  her  thoughts  thus  far  of  the  morn- 
ing though  safely  docketed  in  their  background  against 
mishap,  had  suddenly  come  forward  in  them  as  near  at 
hand,  there  would  be  no  time  for  procrastinate  discussions 
of  outer  emporiums,  so  that  their  luncheon  of  reunited 
state  must  be  here,  and  luncheon  at  the  Normandy,  for 
such  an  occasion,  would  need  garnishing.  Snails,  for 
instance.  .  .  .  Quite  wonderful  in  their  eventual  results, 
if  properly  directed.  ...  (In  one  great  love,  very  great 
if  not  ennobling,  Madame  de  1'Etoile  and  the  princess  were 
akin.)  And  she  re-emerged  in  the  lobby,  birdcage,  birds 
and  all,  and  unconsciously  ecstatic,  swam  across  it,  like 
a  cinema-trick  of  last  night's  picture  run  backward — 
from  lift  to  desk  instead  of  desk  to  lift,  diffusive  rapture  in 
place  of  tabloid  rage,  in  truth  a  Ravisher — marvellous 
etymology  of  Paulownia ! — especially  to  any  amongst  the 


Contrition  367 

onlookers  who  had  onlooked  last  night,  and  of  whom  at 
least  there  was  one,  and  the  only  one  who  had  fully  dis- 
enjoyed  last  night's  film. 

Wanda  breathlessly  accosted  him. 

"I  am  successful,  Mr.  Clark!  I  nearly  sent  for  you, 
but  there  was  her  maid!  You  did  not  know,  of  course, 
but  these  are  what  I  went  for,  and  I  have  them!  I  can 
never  thank  you !  You  must  see  some  of  my  public  per- 
formances— but  indeed,  I  very,  very  much  fear  you  w«uld 
even  more  have  enjoyed  this  one!  When  I  proposed  it, 
she  fell  facewards  on  the  floor !" 

"Mr.  Clark"  almost  fell  facewards  on  her  neck,  but 
he  saved  himself — and  her — by  dint  of  business-training 
and  an  apparent  listening  with  all  this  ardour  to  her  in- 
structions for  luncheon,  which  in  automatically  reverting 
to  him  afterward  gave  him  some  awful  moments  of  doubt 
as  to  his  own  sanity  as  snails  crawled  over  his  brain; 
and  Wanda,  still  shining-eyed,  still  breathless,  and  her 
thoughts  forwarding,  while  her  left-over  impulsion  from 
last  night  should  serve,  to  the  next  portentous  move,  truly 
a  vast  one  in  concept,  of  her  vivid  day,  vanished  like  a 
seraph  upward,  vaporosoed  and  bird-surrounded,  to  beard 
Elise. 

En  route,  it  occurred  to  her  that  anent  her  spoils  of 
war  there  would  be  a  very  octave  of  emotional  moments 
for  Elise — first  a  moment  musical  d'exftase  au  clair  de  lime, 
when  she  learned  that  these  illgotten  gains  were  indeed 
Wanda's  property  and  brought  home  as  such,  and  then, 
as  soon  afterward  as  Wanda  dared — and  Wanda  dared 
virtually  anything  to-day — a  moment  of  ineffable  hell 
when  she  (Elise)  found  out  that  the  parakeets  were  not  to 
live  with  them,  and  moreover,  hell  ghastlier  yet,  that  she 
(Elise)  was  herself  to  enact  the  gruesome  role  of  their 
conveyor  elsewhere. 

This  last  seemed  quite  a  shame,  even  to  this  unscrupu- 
lous adventuress  de  1'Etoile,  as  she  had  learned,  that  un- 
happy A'ida  afternoon,  of  the  psychology  of  the  cuckoo 
clock.  And  had  Daisy  been  the  designed  beneficiary  of 


368  The  Great  Way 

these  parakeets  she  certainly  would  not  have  chosen  Elise 
for  the  errand — not  after  promising  Daisy  last  night  to 
give  her  the  best  of  her  friendship  and  not  its  whimsicality. 
It  simply  so  happened  that  the  deposit  of  those  epoch- 
making  birds  just  where  she  felt  they  should  rest  in  her 
history,  and  the  drawing  of  a  long,  repletely  happy 
breath  upon  the  knowledge  of  it,  required  a  journey  some 
yards  out  of  France,  and  comprised  an  errand  of  so 
fragile  texture  that  she  knew  of  no  one  to  entrust  it  safely 
and  comfortably  to  outside  her  own  self,  unless  Elise — 
Elise  with  that  profound  inner  self  which  she  knew  to 
be  as  accurate  as  the  devil,  and  just  the  right  spirit  for 
this  purpose  of  angelic  metal,  while  Wanda,  quite  aside 
from  not  wishing  to  conduct  the  thing  in  person,  had  very 
double  duties  here  in  Paris — duties  at  the  Opera ;  duties, 
now,  with*  the  Peerage,  that  the  parakeets,  in  the  first 
place,  be  properly  paid  for.  Besides,  so  far  as  any  tor- 
turing of  Elise  was  concerned  by  the  necessities,  the 
whole  design  but  led  forward  in  thought  to  something  of 
far  greater  importance  to  Elise. 

Madame  de  1'Etoile  longed  to  be  alone — was  longing 
for  it  almost  as  she  never  had  longed.  She  wanted — 
with  the  full  two  English  flavours  of  the  word  she  both 
needed  and  desired — the  psychology  of  solitude.  Literal 
aloneness,  instance  dressing  herself,  even  at  the  Opera 
if  necessary,  would  constitute  a  great  percentage  of  such 
psychology;  while  the  sending  of  Elise  upon  an  errand 
of  dimensions  would  be  but  an  appropriate  opening  num- 
ber of  the  Elise  programme  she  had  inspirationally  pat- 
terned. As  anybody  else's  maid,  Elise  was  simply  un- 
imaginable (especially  as  the  impediment  was  one's  own 
fault).  Elise  was  pretty.  Elise,  endowed,  or  less  cul- 
tivatedly  put,  with  somebody  else's  wheels  greased,  would 
not  have  to  be  anybody  else's  maid,  Somebody's,  if 
anybody's,  and  not  long  at  that,  needing  only  a  church 
or  so.  And  thereby,  warned  Madame  de  1'Etoile's 
thoughts  in  one  of  their  racing  contacts  with  English, 
hung  a  dangerous  question  of  the  morale  of  words.  .  .  . 


Contrition  369 

But  rapidly  as  ran  her  thoughts  to-day,  the  lift  had  not 
been  entirely  idle,  either,  and  she  was  facing  her  own 
door — and  the  first  of  those  prophesied  moments. 

There  it  was,  that  moment,  inside,  as  if  expecting  her, 
and  she  had  not  overprophesied,  for  so  was  the  moon- 
light there,  and  not  from  the  rue  de  1'Echelle,  either,  nor 
from  the  Place  Royale,  but  from  Elise,  as  should  have 
been,  Vextase  and  all,  the  clair  streaming  from  her  not 
in  great  vulgar  spikes,  as  from  the  sun,  but  in  great 
oblong  beams,  as  from  the  lune,  and  in  which  sat  Watteau 
and  Boucher  and  Fragonard  painting  fans,  whilst,  amidst, 
Elise  appeared  as  Rachel,  Lecouvreur,  Bernhardt  and 
Duse  in  their  rarest  role,  that  of  the  cuckoo  of  Paradise 
clock,  darting  in  and  out  of  herself  over  Madame  de 
1'Etoile's,  nee  the  Comtesse  d'Orancy's  parakeets. 

When  sunlight  had  been  restored,  and  the  parakeets 
hung  in  it,  and  their  luncheon  been  prepared,  and  Wanda 
prepared  for  hers,  this  comprising  a  redisposal  of  jewel- 
ry and  a  slight  softening  of  hair,  and  the  two  of  them, 
she  and  Elise,  against  the  imminent  Daisy  hour  of  one, 
having  got  to  a  rather  pretty  task,  that  of  composing 
a  nosegay  for  Daisy  out  of  last  night's  bouquets  (Elise, 
so  consistently  consonant  with  people  who  do  not  like 
people,  being  so  rather  sweet  and  nice  about  flowers  too), 
Wanda,  stems  in  hand  and  piles  of  fallen  blooms  around 
her,  came  at  that  same  planned  bearding  of  Elise — and 
not  without  recurrent  thought,  considering  her  chosen 
subject,  of  the  hidden  dangers  of  the  fascinating  English 
tongue. 

The  thing  that  between  them  they  were  planning  for 
Daisy — somehow  Wanda  took  a  gladness  from  thinking 
Daisy  also,  who  had  not  been  there,  would  yet  share 
partially  in  that  wonderful  last  night — was  a  quite  lovely 
thing,  some  of  the  orchids  having  lasted  so,  despite  their 
tossing,  and  the  great  rare  camellias  proffering  flawless 
instances,  and  it  was  with  their  four  hands  doing  together 
a  moderate-sized  miracle  of  tasteful  loveliness  with  a  big 


370  The  Great  Way 

beautiful  hunk  of  brocade  ribbon,  that  Wanda  popped 
her  all  vital  question  to  Elise. 

She  did  it  in  fairly  straightway  fashion,  and  without 
special  danger  on  that  account,  Elise  knowing  her  oral 
methods  so  well,  and  she  so  -well  knowing  Elise's  laconic 
mentality.  It  was  merely  the  size  and  nature  of  this 
particular  subject,  with  its  avenues  for  inference  and 
ramification,  that  had  given  her  as  much  pause  as  it  had, 
and  that  gave  her  as  much  circumlocution  as  it  did. 

"Elise,"  she  said,  "I  earn  my  living,  and  so  do  you. 
I  am  an  opera  singer,  and  you  are  not.  One  must  con- 
sider the  future.  Mine  is  cared  for,  with  a  little  over. 
Otherwise,  such  matters  are  serious.  Elise,  have  you 
ever  thought  of  marrying?" 

"Yes,  Madame.     I  was  married  yesterday,"  said  Elise. 

Madame  de  1'Etoile  was,  in  truth,  not  a  "sheister 
philosopher."  She  did  not,  upon  receipt  of  this  matri- 
monial news,  give  a  scream  that  would  have  pierced  the 
Great  White  Throne  of  Heaven.  Her  wisdom-seeking 
had  been  of  a  genuine  kind  that  had  taught  her  the 
capability,  as  well  as  the  value,  of  silence  upon  certain 
very  great  surprises,  and  instead  of  thus  shaking  the  Lord 
and  the  Normandy  to  their  foundations,  she  went  on 
tying  the  beautiful  brocade  bow  on  the  Princess  Daisy's 
nosegay  with  an  outward  calm  of  such  duration  that 
Elise's  marriage  seemed  to  have  passed  over  with  the 
quietness  of  an  angel  or  a  liaison,  until  she  said: 

"As  soon  as  my  so  important  engagements  get  over 
with,  we  must  discuss  an  agreeable  wedding-gift  for  you, 
Elise.  Meantime,  you  might  think  up  some  points  about 
your  husband  that  would  be  helpful  to  mention." 

"Yes,  Madame,"  said  Elise. 

"But,"  continued  Madame,  quite  as  if  buoyed  onward  by 
this  excellent  answer,  "one  thing  we  might  settle  at  once, 
for  it  is  something  I  had  already  planned  for  you,  and 
it  fortunately  seems  to  fit  even  better  as  things  are.  I 
want  you,  Elise,  to  take  a  trip  into  Spain  for  me,  to — to 
carry  those,  parakeets  where  they  really  belong,  which  is 


Contrition  371 

a  little  town  in  the  Pyrenean  foothills  some  journey  out 
of  Barcelona.  It  is  very  important  to  some  of  my  per- 
sonal feelings  that  they  should  safely  go  there,  to  a  friend 
who  was  once  my  hostess  long  ago,  and  with  a  discreet, 
quite  discreet,  message  of  my  love  and  welfare  to  her,  and 
to  the  priest  of  the  town.  I  know  you  will  remember 
all  this,  though  I  will  repeat  it  leisurely.  But  I  would 
like  the  main  of  it  from  my  mind  now — that  this  pretty 
friend  of  mine,  whose  little  trained  birds  you  will  enjoy, 
Elise,  is  to  know  I  have  not  forgotten  my  love  to  her, 
and  that  it  is  shown  in  these  birds  which  meant  much  to 
me  in  a  great  moment  of  my  life  that  she  would  have  un- 
derstood and  sympathized  with.  Her  very  name,  by  the 
way,  is  'Sympathetic  One.'  And  to  do  this  rightly  for 
me,  I  have  no — no  friend,  Elise,  but  you — none  to  be  so 
trusted  as  you  with  such  birds,  not  to  mention  some 
money  in  form  of  jewels  that  I  will  send  to  the  padre  for 
his  church  purposes.  Naturally,  with  the  Opera  I  cannot 
spare  myself  to  such  a  trip.  And  now  it  would  greatly 
please  me  in  addition,  to  think  it  would  comprise  a  pretty 
wedding-journey  for  you  and  your  husband.  I  suppose 
we  may  consider  so  much  'settled,'  Elise?" 

"We  were  going  to  the  Lake  of  Como,  Madame,  but 
I  will  ask  my  husband,"  said  Elise. 

Philosophic  calm  was  but  briefly  needed  here,  for  the 
telephone  announced  Daisy — happily,  for  snails,  despite 
their  reputation,  must  not  be  kept  waiting,  and  Daisy 
was  already  late;  not  by  intention,  truly,  on  this  im- 
portant occasion,  but  because  she  had  come  by  the  rue  de 
la  Paix,  that  glittering  monster  so  conveniently  situ- 
ated to  corrupt  such  persons  of  weak  character  as  happen 
to  live  at  the  Richelieu  and  call  upon  friends  at  the  Nor- 
mandy. 

And  Wanda  hastened  down  to  find  her  at  the  desk, 
with  a  large  burden  of  foolish  presents  piled  on  it  for 
her,  all  of  which  could  be,  it  seemed  (and  would  be), 
exchanged — a  harbinger  of  a  spring  busy  with  talk,  jour- 
neys and  ramifications;  and  with  these  and  the  glorious 


372  The  Great  Way 

nosegay  and  a  volume  of  greetings  exchanged,  they  pro- 
ceeded gorgeously  weighted  to  the  luncheon-room,  Wanda 
not  forgetting  to  leave  over  her  shoulder  a  climactically 
head-spinning  smile  for  Mr.  Clark,  who  stood  gazing 
dazedly  after  this  miracle-woman  who  was  one  minute 
bedecked  with  bunches  of  feathers  plucked  living  and  by 
force  from  countesses,  and  the  next  with  orchids  and 
camellias  that  she  hung  on  princesses,  before  sallying 
onward  to  eat  snails !  He  had  hoped  doubtfully,  be- 
wilderedly,  that  the  snails  were  to  be  for  the  parakeets. 
But  no.  She  was  not  wearing  them  for  lunch.  Perhaps 
she  had  eaten  them.  And  what  had  she  done  to  her  hair? 
Why  was  she  several  times  as  beautiful  each  time  she 
appeared?  And  he  gave  a  customer  about  a  hundred 
pounds'  worth  of  rooms  for  a  hundred  francs. 

Perhaps  just  the  day  itself,  continuance  of  the  night, 
was  doing  that  deed  of  climbing  beauty  in  Wanda;  mak- 
ing all  the  golden  hay  it  could  out  of  her  before  weari- 
ness could  set  in ;  for  even  the  luncheon  had  its  added 
wine-glass — and  literally,  for  it  comprised  the  happy  acci- 
dent that  the  Countess  d'Orancy  happened  to  be  lunch- 
ing thus  publicly  this  morning,  too,  and  with  one  fell 
swoop  of  mood  Madame  de  1'Etoile  waved  clattering 
aside  not  only  Peerage  stately  etiquette  but  all  Daisy- 
dangers  of  female  contretemps,  and  plunged  the  two  titles 
together.  A  great  running  of  garfons,  forth  and  back 
and  to  and  fro,  took  place.  The  countess,  too,  loved 
snails.  And  too,  the  princess  and  the  countess  loved  each 
other.  Mood !  .  .  .  Faith  can  move  mountains.  .  .  . 
Mood,  put  in  practice,  might  move  chewing-gun.  .  .  . 

And  returned,  and  alone,  to  Elise  again,  just  rightly 
before  four  with  a  neat  margin  for  achieving  a  street- 
gown,  one  further  piece  of  news  worked  rightly  with 
Wanda  for  her  day. 

"My  husband  will  be  very  pleased  to  go  to  Spain, 
Madame,"  said  Elise. 

"Thanks,  Elise,"  said  Wanda. 

And    somewhat    later,    as    the    out-of-doors    costume 


Contrition  373 

neared  its  soft  little  hat,  Elise,  ordained  to  help  the  day 
along  toward  uniquity,  spoke  again,  and  thus  soon  after 
a  most  indefinite  appointment  to  do  so. 

"I  can  think  of  nothing  of  importance  to  tell  you 
about  my  husband,  Madame — except  that  he  has  a  very 
fine  position." 

"Ah?"  said  Wanda,  genuinely  glad.  "And — and  what 
kind  of  position,  Elise?" 

"I  meant  social  position,  Madame,"  said  Elise. 

"You — you  will  wish,  Elise,"  said  Wanda  after  a  mo- 
ment's pause,  and  herself  wishing  to  reach  some  satis- 
fied balance  in  the  circumstances,  "now  that  you  are — are 
Ms  maid — if  you  still  are — instead  of  still  mine,  to  be 
making  your  plans  for  your  home,  and  so  on.  And  I  hope 
it  will  be  at  some  convenient  world-centre  where  I  might 
reach  you  in  some  sudden  need  of  mine.  You  see,  I  will 
have  no  maid  at  all  for  a  period — for  it  will  probably  be 
a  long  time  before  I  come  across  anyone  exactly  like 
you." 

"My  husband  will  decide  where  we  shall  live  when  we 
return  from  Spain,  Madame,"  said  Elise. 

Again  the  telephone,  this  time  precise  with  the  hour 
as  if  it  had  been  a  cuckoo,  saved  Wanda  from  thoughts 
of  profound  philosophy,  and  plunged  her  to  profounder, 
in  whose  extremes  she  was  fully  at  home;  and  again 
the  lobby  and  a  conspicuous  friend  claimed  her — again 
the  desk,  indeed,  for  it  was  here  that  the  mixed  per- 
fumes of  cigarettes  and  Lovers'  Kisses  Soap  would  have 
guided  her  even  if  she  had  been  blinded  by  the  accom- 
panying glare  of  diamonds.  The  centre  and  purveyor 
of  the  fragrance  and  dazzle  was  conversing  and  sharing 
his  Manila  cigarillos  with  Mr.  Clark,  who,  fortunately 
off  duty  at  four  o'clock  sharp,  was  inhaling  as  deeply 
as  he,  marvelling,  and  being  relaxedly  fortified  by  the 
heavy  narcotic  for  one  more,  for  to-day  a  final,  vision 
of  the  wonder-woman.  Yes;  changed  again,  and  instead 
of  just  several  times  more  beautiful,  a  hundred  times, 
with  those  suave  touches  of  fur,  a  hundred  times  more 


374  The  Great  Way 

'devastating,  not  with  the  smile,  which  he  was  nervously 
prepared  for,  but  with  her  articulation  of  "darling1" 
(Darling!)  to  this — this! — visitor.  Visitor?  Brigand? 
Pirate  ?  Martian  ?  When  he  awoke,  they  were  gone.  .  .  . 

They  were  gone  into  an  awaiting  vehicle,  and  one  more- 
over that  was  not  a  horseless-carriage,  forceful,  mod- 
ern, space-annihilating,  but  one  horseful  and  forceless, 
dawdling,  old-Parisian ;  and  she  leant  back  as  if  she  were 
driving  through  the  Ramblas  at  home  in  Spain,  quiet  at 
his  side,  quite  wordless,  and  quaffing  strength,  in  this 
first  moment  of  inevitable  tiredness,  from  this  understand- 
ing presence  of  her  prospective  confessor.  "Somewhere 
gay"  was  what  she  had  last  night  directed  him,  and  she 
wondered,  now  a  little  fearfully,  whereto  indeed  he  was 
taking  her.  And  soon,  almost  with  a  little  choke  for 
her  at  this  fresh  lesson  against  fear  of  any  kind  where 
there  is  love,  and  in  iteration  of  the  constant  wonder  of 
this  being's  divination,  she  found  themselves,  after  a 
clumping  jog  through  the  dear  Gauche  of  old  Paris,  in  a 
desertedly  quiet  little  restaurant  near  the  Luxembourg; 
in  the  Quartier;  not  quite  of  it.  And  without  consulting 
her,  of  the  one  stork-like  waiter  in  sight  he  ordered,  in 
an  Esperanto-polyglot  pronunciation  that  was  planet* 
away  from  French,  but  a  voice  that  not  the  Frenchest 
of  waiters  upon  foreigners  would  have  dared  to  pretend  to 
misunderstand, 

"Ab-sm-ty!" 

Through  the  life-and-mood-giving  pearl  seep  of  it 
through  her  body,  thoughts,  easier  and  easier  thoughts, 
came  to  her  for  her  confessional;  but  preventive  of  all 
their  initial  articulate  need  came  from  him  as  the  jog' 
trot  vehicle  and  the  restorative  absinthe  had  come,  in 
one  sudden,  commanding  demand  from  him  across  the 
table  in  the  instant  when  he  found  her  revivant  eyes 
rightly  ashine: 

"Tell  you  me  this  instantly:  7*  all  this  because  you 
marry  him,  or  because  you  do  not?" 

Never  before  had  Arnold,  in  such  a  light,  been  spoken 


Contrition  375 

between  them,  and  with  tears  in  the  brightened  eyes,  happy 
tears  at  the  ease  of  it  all  now,  she  looked  fully  at  him 
and  said  simply: 

"Darling,  it  is  because  I  do  not." 

And  even  after  what  soul-reading  had  just  been 
shown,  even  she,  for  all  her  own  soul-reading  of  him,  was 
startled  by  the  joy-cry  that  leapt  from  him. 

"Then  you  are  yourself  again!"  was  the  cry.  "Once 
more,  you  are  de  1'Etoile,  the,  my  de  1'Etoile !" 

"So,"  she  choked,  whisperingly,  "you  knew  so  well, 
as  well  as  that — knew  better  than  I !" 

And  with  gradually  joy-steadied  voice  Confession 
grew  like  a  rich  flower  of  the  sun  out  of  the  choking  whis- 
per— and  Absolution,  pure  as  only  a  passion  flower  can 
be  pure,  from  the  guttural  words  of  his  satisfaction,  once 
he  knew  that  the  Little  Red  Books  were  to  be  themselves 
again,  that  his  star  was  not  to  be  dragged  from  its  orbit 
by  any  mere  world. 

Much  as  she  had  known  of  taking  and  of  gift,  from 
people,  and  peoples,  and  to  them,  nothing  in  her  life  had 
equalled,  or  approximated,  in  giving,  in  comprehension, 
in  selflessness,  this,  since  that  Cadiz  day,  since  that  thing 
of  Sacrament  to  which  Sacrament  now  returned,  reor- 
dained  her  .  .  .  since  Isabel. 

"Understanding  ...  what  a  thing  it  is !  Understand- 
ing .  .  .  what  a  thing,  what  a  word!"  she  said  over  and 
over  to  herself;  and  aloud:  "All  I  need,  now,  after 
your  telling  me,  confirming  me,  darling,  that  I  ha$  been 
wrong,  that  now  I  am  right,  is  a  word — no,  a  name; 
a  name  for  the  place — the  space — that  was  wrong  in  the 
Gran  Via,  now  that  I  have  passed  it.  I  had  a  flash  of 
it — flashes — last  night.  I  promised  myself  I  would  track 
it  to  its  hiding-place  to-day.  And  what  with  parakeets, 
and  Elise,  and  titled  persons,  I  have  failed  as  yet!" 

And  her  eyes  had  taken  on,  though  so  happily,  so 
almost  peacefully,  their  seeking  look. 

"Whimsie!"  he  cried,  dictatorially.  ''Word?  Name? 
Nothing  else  but  whimsie!  You  do  not  need  any  word! 


376  The  Great  Way 

You  do  not  need  any  name,  except  de  1'Etoile!  It  is 
enough  that  this  business  of  paint  is  over  with!  Paint, 
paint !  It  was  not  you,  it  was  your  life  you  were  allowing 
to  be  painted!" 

And  this  time,  it  was  from  her  that  a  startling  cry 
came. 

"I  have  it !"  her  cry  was.  "Your  words,  upon  a  word 
and  thoughts  of  mine  last  night,  have  brought  it  to  me! 
Sophistication.  .  .  .  Quicksand.  .  .  .  Desert.  .  .  .  Make- 
up and  paint.  .  .  .  Yes,  that  part  of  my  life  and  all  that 
it  meant,  the  worldliness,  the  easiness,  yes,  and  empti- 
ness, all  of  the  comfort  and  none  of  the  pain  of  Art  .  .  . 
are  named  for  me  now,  and  for  my  Great  Way,  forever. 
And  strangely,  there  is  such  a  place,  with  just  that 
name,  in  America,  where  so  much  of  it  grew  toward  over- 
coming me.  .  .  .  Yes,  all  of  real  life  I  was  bringing  to 
the  Opera,  putting  into  my  voice,  my  acting,  my  stage 
portraits,  and  all  the  paint,  all  the  canvas  and  emptiness 
of  the  Opera's  great  stages,  I  was  turning  into  my  life. 
So  that  that  life,  though  I  did  not  know  it,  was  all  a 
desert,  and  a  painted  one!  Darling,  that  part  of  my 
Gran  Via  was  the  Painted  Desert!" 

"And  the  next  part,"  he  said,  prompt,  advantage-tak- 
ing, "is — London" 

"Ah!"  And  with  the  instinctive  exclamation,  hand- 
outward  a  little  forefending  gesture  escaped  her — even  in 
her  glow,  even  in  the  wonder  of  the  day's  flawless  conduct 
of  her  renaissance. 

Undeviating,  he  ignored  it  with  calm  assumption,  with, 
too,  a  certain  suspicious  demand: 
"What  will  you  sing  there?" 

A  certain  mist  came  into  her  eyes,  but  it  was  a  peace" 
ful  mist,  not  a  groping  one. 

"I  do  not  know.     What  does  it  matter?" 
"It  matters  only  torment,  that  you  could  end  at  once! 
Whimsie!     But  I  will  allow  you  whimsie,  only  knowing 
that  you  go.    You  go  to  London?" 
"Yes,  I  go  to  London." 


Contrition  377 

"Ah!"  And  again,  his  this  time,  the  word  was  in- 
stinctive, again  his  voice  had  been  a  guttural  cry;  and 
prepared  for  her,  prepared  like  Nemesis,  he  drew  a  big 
thick  folded  paper  from  his  pocket,  along  with  a  bigger, 
a  thicker  pen,  a  fountain-pen,  a  pen  so  childishly  large 
that  it  looked  as  if  it  had  been  made  by  man,  as  God 
made  the  camel,  to  cross  successfully  and  come  triumph- 
antly out  of  any  desert  in  the  world. 

But  she  was  young  in  her  wonderful  renaissance,  in- 
deed, less  than  twenty-four  hours  old  in  it,  as  yet,  and 
from  such  actuality  as  this  she  shrank  back. 

"Ah,  darling,"  she  cried,  "that,  I  cannot,  no,  must 
not,  do  to-day !  Not  to-day !  Let  me  feel  myself,  let  me 
know,  a  little  more  strongly  first !  I  promise,  yes,  I 
promise,  that  I  will  go.  But  when?  Possibly  then,  ac- 
cording that  paper.  But  even  for  that,  there  are  some 
weeks*  time  yet !  Give  me  a  little,  long  free  breath  of 
Paris  springtime!" 

He  gazed  at  her  a  moment ;  then,  as  of  old  days — four- 
hundred-year-old  days — he  said: 

"7  can  trust  you" 

"Yes,"  she  answered,  "you  can  now  trust  me,  darling, 
fully.  Fully,  now  that  I  have  left  behind  me — forever 
—that  Painted  Desert!" 


CHAPTER  XXXVI 

PASEAE 

ELISE  left  for  Spain,  and  the  Pyrenean  foothills;  left 
from  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  on  a  pretty  day,  golden,  flowery, 
that  seemed  to  say,  "Printemps  de  Paris!"  .  .  .  left  sur- 
rounded by  well-wishers,  luxuries,  luggage.  Parakeets. 
Presents.  Printemps  de  Paris.  Wanda  was  there.  Daisy 
was  there.  The  Countess  d'Orancy  was  there.  Arnold 
was  there.  Mary  Rutgers,  and  Margot,  and  Mary  Rut- 
gers's  fiance  were  there.  Mr.  Clark  was  not  there.  He 
saw  them  leave — leave  the  hotel.  And  all  the  rest  saw 
Elise  leave — leave  for  Spain.  Printemps  de  Paris.  Daisy 
gave  her  a  great  many  of  the  presents.  One  of  the  pres- 
ents was  a  clock.  It  could  not  tell  the  time,  but  it  could 
yell.  It  had  a  pink  magpie  in  it.  Daisy  nearly  kept 
it.  Daisy  cried,  when  Elise  left  for  Spain.  Printemps 
de  Paris.  And,  oh — Madame  de  PEtoile  afterward  re- 
membered— Elise's  husband  left  for  Spain,  and  the  Pyre- 
nean foothills.  If  Elise  had  not  been  bearded,  she  had 
anyhow  been  moustached — and  waxed;  yes,  Madame  de 
PEtoile  was  quite  sure  she  had  seen  a  waxed  moustache 
somewhere,  through  the  bars  of  a  birdcage.  Printemps 
de  Paris. 

With  this  festooned  episode  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  the 
longed-for  psychology  of  solitude  was  officially  instituted 
for  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  and  her  Paris  Springtime  proved 
itself  a  succession  of  golden  days,  silvery  nights,  for 
which  she  sought,  and  swiftly  found,  a  convenient  and 
pretty  christening-term,  and  one  again  that  if  not  deep- 
dyed  of  actual  churchly  hue,  was  of  religio-sesthetic  tints  : 
she  called  this  time  of  her  richer  and  richer  glowing  renais" 

378 


Pasear  379 

sancfc  her  "Miracle  of  Jewels" ;  with  Faith  that  its  spring- 
tide growths  and  discoveries  would  prove  beautiful  stones, 
at  least  some  of  them  gems,  and  all  of  them  precious; 
and  with  Faith  replying  to  her. 

One  gem  indeed  came  gradually  there  into  place  in  the 
golden  day-links,  for  it  was  painted  truly,  surely  as  if 
carven — her  portrait,  Arnold's  portrait,  of  her  great 
Wayward  One,  now  his ;  and  afterward,  the  great  world's, 
as  hers  already  was,  and  more  lasting,  materially,  than 
hers,  for  as  his  portrait  of  her  as  a  Lady  hangs  in  the 
Metropolitan,  this  hangs  in  the  Luxembourg,  patiently 
waiting,  or  else  impatiently,  however  may  be  with  an 
inanimate  thing  as  living  and  as  seemingly  full  of  soul  as 
this,  for  Arnold's  death,  and  the  moment,  ten  years  after 
that  sad  incident,  when  it  can  go  to  live  more  fully  in 
the  Louvre.  But  of  purer  gem  colour  to  Wanda  than 
such  future  likelihoods,  was  the  gradual  painting  out 
from  his  handsome  face  a  certain  look  that  had  lived 
there  since  her  great  wayward  night  .  .  .  and  the  equally 
subtle,  quite  unconscious  painting  in  of  a  less  sorrowful, 
a  contented,  yes,  even  a  happier  tint.  .  .  .  Printemps 
de  Paris !  .  .  . 

She  saw  much  of  Daisy.  A  delightful  "mucho";  for, 
as  the  little  princess's  erstwhile  pique  had  led  her  flounc- 
ingly  to  take  out  a  lease  of  that  Richelieu  royal  suite — 
seemingly  for  miniature  royalty  and  a  place  perfectly 
appropriate  for  Daisy  or  ivory  chessfolk  to  dwell  in — 
Wanda  was  neither  "domesticked"  nor  "domestuck"  with 
her.  And  the  rue  de  la  Paix's  monstrous  demands  upon 
them  were  a  sort  of  pleasant  stimulant-narcotic  to  Wanda 
instead  of  an  exhaustive. 

But  most  of  all  perhaps,  and  anyway  with  greatest 
tenderness,  her  hours  other  than  those  of  her  studies  and 
the  Opera  went  to  Paulownia:  Countess  no  more,  Pau- 
lownia  now  only  in  part — specifically,  Paula.  She  knew 
what  that  tree  was  like,  if  Wanda  did  not,  and  would 
not  be  known  by  it,  even  in  the  spring,  except  in  legal 
documents.  Rotund,  enamelled  little  Paula,  then.  Drives 


380  The  Great  Way 

and  music,  music,  motor-drives  and  music ;  and  this  bit  of 
the  botany,  scarcely  thought  of  as  Peerage  Department 
now,  grew  tight  like  a  morning-glory  around  the  diva's 
heartstrings.  There  was  an  ample  space  of  such  strings 
for  a  vine-flower  of  propinquity  to  climb  upon  and  curl 
around,  so  aptly  after  the  close,  brief  nearness  of  Dona 
Rina — green,  a  bit  sadly  green  in  her  Paris  Springtime 
thoughts,  right  as  it  all  was,  that  little  story,  rightly  as 
it  all  must  eventuate,  only  pensive,  not  quite  unhappy, 
even  now,  as  the  loved  heroine  of  it,  so  far  away,  bravely 
climbed  her  own  ladder,  and  so  doing,  was  paid  by  life  in 
the  very  fact  of  her  paying  it.  But  it  was  well,  it  was 
a  glad  thing,  to  have  warmth  near-by  too,  right  here  in 
the  little  Street  of  the  Ladder  itself.  And  somehow,  it 
was  largely  aside  from  the  parakeets  and  their  spiritual 
obligation  that  Wanda's  affection  grew  so  sturdy;  some- 
how, it  was  around  thoughts,  ever  current  and  recurrent 
thoughts,  of  Ladislas,  and  the  Heaven's-Throne-rending 
little  tale  of  that  son  which  so  piteously  haloed  her  sweet, 
lonely  little  Paula.  How  was  it  the  young — and  espe- 
cially the  middle-aged  young! — so  disregarded  the  old, 
and  most  especially,  the  old  and  fat?  Was  that  simply 
life — thus  showing  life  to  be  nothing  else  but  death?  .  .  . 
She  could  not  find  it  in  her  to  blame  Fifi  overmuch.  She 
remembered  that  herself  had  been  an  artista.  .  .  .  And 
the  thought  led  her  on  to  think,  too,  of  herself  in  rela- 
tion to  the  old — to  parents — and  of  what  had  been  said 
to  her  of  that  in  the  dancing  streets,  the  old  dancing 
streets,  of  old  Sevilla.  .  .  . 

But  such  thoughts,  though  of  such  indeed  are  rosaries 
and  renaissances  made,  she  would  not  greatly  allow  her- 
self, and  for  the  right  colouring  of  her  springtime  jewel- 
string  (and  "rosary"  she  let  herself  call  it  now,  instead 
of  mere  "miracle,"  as  a  present  for  herself,  to  pay  back 
for  that  one  sad  thought)  she  gave  herself,  withal  her 
pensiveness  of  peaceful  philosophy,  to  things  of  gaiety — 
parties  even.  Parties  of  Arnold,  and  Daisy,  and  Paula, 
and  Mary  Rutgers,  and  Mary's  fiance  (marvelling  par- 


Pasear  381 

ticularly  at  how  the  princess  and  the  countess  continued 
to  love  each  other!  Or  rather,  at  the  princess's  con- 
tinuing love  of  the  countess.  Could  titles  have  to  do  with 
love?  Alas,  the  mere  little  "Dona"  had  been  a  large  pre- 
cipitant of  the  reverse  "catastroaf"  in  Nueva  York!). 
So  that  on  her  great — and  indeed  growingly  greater — 
Opera  nights,  Wanda's  whole  Botany-Peerage  would 
bloom  in  one  box  together  as  if  on  the  window-sill  of 
a  king's  tenement,  for  all  the  world  to  see  ...  a  large, 
lovable  dot  in  itself  on  the  furthering  miracle-string  of 
that  rosary  of  jewels. 

And  in  herself  a  rose,  by  hint  of  texture  and  by  virile 
sweetness,  Mary  Rutgers  proved,  and  it  was  that  im- 
pression that  Wanda  secured,  and  lastingly  held,  as  to  the 
whole  of  Mary  and  of  Mary's  placidly  pretty  love-match ; 
and  exclusively,  for  distinct  portraiture  of  its  hero 
Wanda  somehow  did  not  memorably  achieve.  A  handsome 
young  man,  as  heroes  go,  and  ought  to  go.  A  type.  Yes, 
that  was  it,  a  type,  for  though  he  was  not  English,  he 
would  suggest  to  her,  at  the  festivities  at  which  they 
mingled,  the  desk  clerk  of  the  hotel — and  then  stop, 
abruptly  stop,  suggesting  further,  so  that  Wanda,  in  her 
chance  after-thoughts  of  him  away  from  him,  could  never 
rightly  diffuse  him  from  "Mr.  Clark,"  although  one  was 
very  brune  and  the  other  very  blond.  But  which?  And 
which  one's  collar  was  it  that  did  not  go  the  same  way? 
So  that  indeed,  driving  with  Paula  in  the  Bois  she  bowed 
to  Mr.  Clark  so  very  deeply  one  afternoon  that  Paula 
by  reflex  action  bowed  quite  deeply  too,  and  Mr.  Clark, 
thus  put  upon  by  Fate,  spent  a  sleepless  night  on  Wan- 
da's account  thereafter,  while  Wanda  spent  an  equally 
sleepless  night  on  his,  deciding  and  redeciding  whether  it 
were  ethically  and  duly  right  for  her  to  hint  to  Arnold 
that  she  had  caught  Mary's  fiance  in  the  Bois  du  Bou- 
logne with  a  lovely  ingenue  who  was  not  Mary ;  and  with 
pitiless  daylight  felt  indeed  she  must,  despite  her  own 
conscience-strickening  past  life,  until  Paula  said  to  her, 
after  some  hesitation,  at  breakfast : 


382  The  Great  Way 

"You  look  tired,  dear,  as  if  you  hadn't  slept  well,  so 
I  specially  oughtn't  to  say  anything  un-good-looking: 
But,  dear,  /  have  had  a  perfectly  sleepless  night,  and  it's 
best  sooner  than  later  to  tell  you  why.  And  with  all 
your  kind-hearted  notions  about  comradeship,  and  Span- 
ish democracy,  and  so  on,  I  really  feel,  sweetheart,  that 
you  shouldn't  have  bowed  quite  so  elaborately  to  that 
saucy  desk  clerk  in  the  Bois  yesterday.  Here  in  the 
hotel,  darling,  it  is  none  of  my  affair  how  much  you 
break  his  heart.  That  is  one  of  the  casualties  of  his 
unhappy  business  position,  and  he  must  go  through  it. 
But  it's  literally  unscrupulous  of  you,  Wanda  darling, 
to  dazzle  him  blind  in  the  street,  and  wouldn't  be  a  bit 
like  you  if  you  stopped  to  think." 

Wanda  did  stop  to  think,  tea-cup  in  air,  and  after 
a  long  moment  of  dazed  silence,  said: 

"Yes.  You  are  quite  right.  That  was  a  great  mis- 
take of  mine  in  the  Bois.  I  must  be  much  more  cau- 
tious !" 

Thus  the  nights  passed — not  sleepless  all  of  them, 
happily  .  .  .  and  the  days — happily  sleepless  all  of 
them,  with  the  early-birding  of  this  Paula  and  that 
Wanda,  with  their  positively  parakeet  love  of  sunshine 
.  .  .  for  the  song-bird,  in  happy  trivialities,  and  in  one 
great  significance:  the  growth  as  on  truly  a  sparkling 
rosary-string  of  her  Miracle  of  Jewels. 

And  then,  not  with  a  trumpet-cry  at  dawn,  but  cas- 
ually in  manner,  as  even  the  richest  days  will  do,  came  a 
day  that  was  the  jewel-day  of  all,  one  that  in  its  gar- 
nering for  her  of  pure  stones  might  well  form  the  happy, 
un-Golgothasd  symbol,  if  such  could  be  on  any  rosary, 
to  be  the  carven-gemmed  pendant  of  the  chain. 

It  was  at  a  time  when  the  swiftly  sure  portrait  was 
assured,  where  accident  short  of  death  could  but  with 
difficulty  injure  its  creation,  and  interruption  be  but  of 
petty  good  or  harm ;  and  eager,  unusually  so  because  the 
day  held  no  other  plan  of  specialized  enjoyment,  she  went 


Pasear  383 

for  her  appointed  time  to  Arnold's  beautiful  studio ;  and 
she  did  not  sit  that  day. 

Something  withheld  her  from  the  actual  threshold. 
Withheld  her,  guardian  angel-like.  It  was  voices ;  rather, 
one  voice,  it  seemed,  but  one  that  certainly  was  not 
talking  to  itself,  and  moreover  seemed  not  even  quite  itself 
— for  it  was  dramatic,  while  it  was  Arnold's  voice.  Arno 
dramatic !  .  .  .  Thought  of  contretemps,  in  a  feministic 
sense,  would  not  have  held  her  back,  for  that  was  be- 
yond all  thinking.  Guardian  angel,  then ;  and  as  the  door 
was  welcomingly  open,  she  listened.  And  Arnold's  voice 
went  on — went  dramatically  on ;  and  there  was  a  sob,  a 
sob  from  another  voice.  A  royal  voice ;  a  refined,  a  royal 
sob.  Somehow,  in  the  dramatic  words  which  had  caused 
it,  there  was  something  familiar,  as  if  known  before, 
but  not  heard.  And  suddenly,  she  knew;  and  knew,  too, 
that  Arnold  had  forgotten  her  appointment.  This  indeed 
was  miracle,  a  jewel  miracle.  Arnold  was  doing  something 
he  had  proffered  to  do — to  do  in  her  behalf — long  ago : 
he  was  reading  "Jacquot-Jacquette"  aloud,  aloud  to  a 
Little  Princess.  Yes,  he  was  chewing  away  bit  by  bit, 
as  she,  thus  aided,  was  swallowing  whole,  the  last,  the 
very  last,  of  those  Edenesque  and  history-making  apples. 
Wanda  knew  that  they  were  nearly  gone ;  knew  that  quite 
presently,  in  a  very  few  seconds  more,  there  was  a  clas- 
sical, a  climactic  sentence,  a  sentence  epoch-suggesting 
in  potentiality,  probably  as  really  great  a  sentence  as 
any  in  the  whole  fifty  chapters  of  "Les  Pommes  de  Jac- 
quot-Jacquette." That  sentence  was  on  the  very  last 
page,  and  that  sentence  was: 

"Jacques!  Jacquot!  Jacquetie!  Jacquot-Jacquette!" 

Printemps  de  Paris. 

And  Wanda  fled;  a  quiet,  a  happy,  heart-filled  flight; 
fled  to  Paula,  not  to  talk,  but  to  express — to  tell  just 
"I  am  happy!" — that  she  was  happy  from  the  fullness 
of  friendship  that  is  not  whimsical. 

Through  her  brief  journey  back  to  the  Normandy,  her 
one  thought  of  want,  of  want  that  seemed  unlikely  of 


384  The  Great  Way 

fulfilment,  was  of  Paula  herself,  a  longing  that  there  might 
be  some  wonderful  bit  of  happiness  for  little  Paula  that 
was  not  just  a  voice,  or  Bois-panorama?d  motor-cars,  or, 
as  so  selfishly  to-day,  a  share  of  news  of  somebody  else's 
happiness,  such  as  her  own  this  minute.  And  she  almost 
wondered  if  she  ought,  as  she  longed,  to  burst  in  upon 
her  with  those  words  "I  am  happy !"  and  she  was  not 
allowed  to,  for  though  burst  in  she  did,  it  was  to  an 
outburst  from  Paula: 

"Oh,  Wanda,  Wanda,  I'm  so  happy!  Wanda,  Fifi's 
dead !  Fifi's  dead !  Oh,  Wanda,  Fifi's  dead !  Oh,  Wanda, 
Wanda,  Wanda !" 

Fifi  was  dead,  there  was  no  doubt  about  that.  For 
a  voluminous  letter  was  in  Paula's  hand,  and  largely  in 
the  air,  waving;  and  any  reflection  in  Wanda's  mind  of 
generalizing  sadness  that  death,  death  to  anyone  in  the 
world,  and  especially  to  any  artista,  could  be,  as  it  so 
legitimately  could,  a  matter  of  complete,  rapturous  happi- 
ness to  any  soul  as  entirely  sweet  as  the  one  glowing 
through  its  enamel  before  her,  was  wiped  from  thought 
by  Paula's  next  volatile,  staccato,  breathless  and  breath- 
taking announcement: 

"Ladislas  of  course  has  gone  in  mourning,  and  perhaps 
Central  America  has  too — though  I  doubt  it — but  the 
Consulate  hasn't,  we  can  be  sure  of  that,  and  I'm  going 
out  to  buy  a  red  dress  to  wear !  I've  never  worn  a  red 
dress  in  my  life  and  didn't  suppose  anything  could  ever 
induce  me  to,  but  I'm  going  to  wear  one  down  to  dinner 
to-night,  the  reddest  dress  in  Paris !  And  you  must  go 
with  me,  darling,  for  your  eyes  are  better  than  mine, 
and  we  must  be  sure  we  pick  out  the  brightest  one!  Oh, 
Fifi'g  dead!" 

And  she  disappeared  to  dress  in  plaid  for  the  parade 
after  the  funeral  garment,  and  promptly  appeared  Mar- 
got,  taking  her  place  and  neglecting  her  to  her  task, 
with  a  double  excuse  to  partake  of  a  double  joy:  the 
joy  of  even  a  glimpse  of  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  who  had 
enraptured  her  life  by  having  her  several  times  in  her 


Pasear  385 

dressing-room  at  the  Opera  to  "assist"  at  the  miracle  of 
toileting  an  actual  opera-singer;  and  the  joy  of  rehears- 
ing to  her  this  Central  American  sensation. 

Fifi  certainly  was  dead.  She  had  died  in  agony,  the 
most  awful  agony,  following  convulsions.  The  Wages 
of  Sin  had  been  paid  like  a  great  thunderbolt  rolling  from 
the  blue  floor  of  heaven.  She  had  been  bitten  by  a  Gila- 
Monster.  If  aid  does  not  come  promptly  after  the  Gila- 
Monster,  there  is  no  hope.  God  had  meant  it,  for  the 
Gila-Monster  is  not  Central  American  and  no  precau- 
tions had  been  taken  against  one  biting  Fifi.  And  yet 
one  had  come  all  the  way  from  the  neighbourhood  of 
the  Rio  Grande  and  bitten  her.  Bitten  her  all  over. 
And  when  aid  had  come,  she  was  screaming  but  could  not 
speak,  for  she  was  having  convulsions.  She  had  convul- 
sion after  convulsion.  And  when  she  was  dead,  she  had 
turned  black,  black  from  head  to  foot.  That  was  how 
it  was  known  to  have  been  a  Gila-Monster,  although  it 
had  got  away,  and  bitten  no  one  else  in  Central  America. 
So  God  had  meant  it,  meant  that  Fifi  should  die,  and 
turn  black,  black  for  people  to  see,  as  black  outside  as 
she  had  been  within.  Not  to  mention  what  a  fix  in  which 
to  be  shown  up  before  the  Great  White  Throne.  Fifi  was 
dead.  Printemps  de  Paris.  Dead  as  a  door-nail,  and 
black  from  head  to  foot. 

Indeed,  Madame  de  1'Etoile  was  not  sorry  to  turn, 
herself,  from  black  to  brightest  red,  in  company  with 
Paula.  And  forth  they  went,  and  bought  a  brighter  red 
than  any  Wanda  had  ever  seen  outside  an  arena;  and 
as  fortunately  it  could  not  be  got  fixed  for  Paula's  round 
figure  to  wear  forthright  out  of  the  shop,  so  that  she 
likely  would  set  fire  to  only  the  inside  of  the  hotel,  Wanda 
proposed  and  put  into  effect  a  rambling  journey,  remi- 
niscent tenderly  of  her  meanderings  from  dresses  to  Beer- 
sheba  with  Dona  Rina — glowingly  rejoicing  in  her  pres- 
ent friend's  touching,  strange  big  happiness,  glowingly 
rejoicing  in  her  own — starting  down  the  Avenue  de 
1'Opera,  and  stopping  indolently  here  and  yon.  A  book- 


386  The  Great  Way 

store  lured  her.  It  was  the  shop  where  she  and  Doiia 
Rina  had  discovered  the  Valse  Brume — a  music-shop  she 
had  then  thought,  a  book-shop,  and  a  famous  one,  she 
now  knew.  And  within,  something  still  new  in  gladness, 
wonderful  gladness,  was  await  for  her.  She  had  little 
love  of  the  basic  colour  red  .  .  .  except  in  little  books. 
And  a  little  red  book  among  new,  imported  springtime 
products,  called  here  to  her  eyes  and  then  her  fingers. 
It  was  a  fair  little  volume  of  reminiscence,  essayesque, 
modestly  personal.  A  transient-looking,  casual  little 
book.  But  her  eyes  widened,  her  heart  bounded.  "By 
Rina  Rugg"  it  said.  Almost,  tears  were  in  her  eyes.. 
And  then,  when  she  had  turned  a  page,  they  were  in  her 
eyes,  swiftly  were  on  her  cheeks.  For,  "To  Wanda"  it 
had  further  said.  And  that  was  all  there  was  of  dedica- 
tion ...  so  like  Dona  Rina ;  no  hint  of  the  past  with 
a  poignant  name  unknown  to  the  world ;  no  culling  of  the 
little  prestige  of  the  "de  1'Etoile"  that  was  so  known 
to  it.  ... 

Paula  did  not  ask  why  she  was  crying,  but  she  told 
her;  and  into  the  sunshine  of  this  wonderful  day  the  two 
went  forth  again,  each  with  a  little  red  book  .  .  .  each 
with  many  little  red  books,  as  many  as  was  wise  and 
profitable  to  take  away  from  the  present  supply,  to  show 
and  to  talk  about  to  all  the  noteworthies  they  knew.  .  .  . 

They  paused  again  near-to,  for  Wanda  to  send  a  cable- 
gram to  a  distant  friend  whose  happiness  meant  heart- 
overrunning  happiness  to  herself  .  .  .  this  jewelled  day 
...  a  long,  a  spendthrift's  cablegram,  with  several  dif- 
ferent times  "darling  Rina"  in  it.  ... 

And  then,  again  at  Wanda's  request,  on  they  went 
across  Paris,  into  the  Cite,  and  down  through  the  bridge, 
down,  into  the  little  Garden  of  the  Gallant  Green,  and 
Wanda  sat  once  more — and  once  more  with  a  loved  friend, 
too — between  the  silver  streamers  of  the  Seine  divided  by 
it,  and  under  the  accumulating  lavender  of  the  sunset. 
.  .  .  Overhead,  too,  the  giant  corpuscles  of  the  city  life- 
blood  glowed  by  in  the  bridging  artery  from  hand  to  hand 


Pasear  387 

of  Paris  .  .  .  from  the  right  hand  to  the  left  hand,  from 
the  left  hand  to  the  right.  .  .  . 

With  the  coming  of  real  dusk,  she  dispatched  Paula 
home,  in  a  car  that  would  hasten  against  that  red  robing 
for  a  Normandy  dinner ;  and  herself  went  afoot,  leisurely, 
between  the  long  wonderful  lines  of  twinkling  lights,  up 
through  the  city,  along  that  splendid  great  stretching 
continuance  of  the  Boul  "-Miche,"  the  Boulevard  de  Se- 
bastopol,  happily,  anticipatingly  as  she  had  gone  that 
Seventh  Day  from  Mont  Juich  round  about  through  the 
Gran  Via,  and  to  a  certainty,  to-day,  of  the  opposite  of 
heartbreak;  into  the  great  circling  boulevards  where  the 
Porte  St.  Martin  and  the  Porte  St.  Denis  neighbour 
them  and  each  other,  and  along  them,  past  the  Bonne- 
Nouvelle,  to  the  Poissoniere,  and  thence  Montmartreward, 
but  not  very  far,  for  it  was  in  a  little  narrow  hotel  in 
the  bending  rue  Cadet  that  the  Maestro  dwelt  and  smoked. 

And  without  need  of  miracle  to  accomplish  it  here,  she 
went  up  unannounced,  and  threading  her  way  by  a  certain 
heavy  odour  of  Manila,  reached  his  room,  and  knocked, 
and  entered,  and  seated  herself  very  quietly  therein. 

"Darling,"  she  said,  "I  am  here  to  tell  you  something, 
but  first,  I  am  going  to  ask  you  a  question,  which  answer 
if  you  can.  I  wonder  if  you  can?  It  is  not  for  any  spe- 
cial reason  of  the  moment;  and  it  is  simply  this:  How 
is  it  that  you  understand  me  so  deeply,  minutely,  and 
well;  by  what  miracle-gift  is  it  that  you  do?" 

He  looked  at  her  gravely,  his  gold-brown  eye-pools 
seeming  very  calm,  and  very  deep ;  and  there  was  but 
little  pause  before  his  answer. 

"I  know  something  of  the  sensitive  temperament,"  he 
said,  simply. 

After  a  longer  pause  than  his,  and  her  own  eyes  deep 
with  thoughtfulness,  she  said: 

"Yes,  you  wovld  answer  very,  very  simply,  and  I  sup- 
pose that  that  is  what  it  is.  Yes,  what  you  have  said 
tells  all  of  the  soul  of  it,  though  so  little,  so  very  little,  of 
the  quantity!  .  .  .  And  now,"  she  added,  "perhaps  I  am 


888  The  Great  Way 

not,  after  all,  going  to  tell  you  what  I  said  I  would,  for 
what  need?  You  see,  what  I  am  here  for  to-day,  a  day 
of  miraculous  jewels,  is  a  thing  rather  to  do,  than  to  tell." 

And  with  the  golden-brown  pools  illuminated,  but  silent 
in  his  joy,  he  unfolded  and  placed  the  great  thick  paper, 
unscrewed  and  placed  the  greater,  thicker  pen,  before 
her.  And  save  for  the  scratching  of  this  great  pen,  it 
was  in  a  replete  silence,  a  silence  of  happiness,  full  and 
daring  happiness,  that  she  at  last  signatuied  the  por- 
tentous paper  with  the  one  great  word: 

de  I'Etoile. 


BOOK  IV 
THROUGH  THE  BAD  VALLEY 

CHAPTER  XXXVII 

THE  NIGHT  AND  THE   NIGHTINGALE 

ENGLAND! 

It  was  a  written  word,  yet  a  word  ejaculated,  as  if 
vocally,  as  if  the  flowing,  reckless  ink  of  it  were  a  means 
to  ecstasy  as  worthy,  as  easy,  as  articulation  itself. 

England! 

Again  with  the  black  silence  of  night  it  noised  itself 
abroad  upon  the  white  paper,  with  again  large,  free- 
handed letters  despite  the  shocked  marginal  boundaries  of 
a  little  red-leather-covered  book;  with  again  a  great  as- 
tonishment-mark, as  if  England  were  indeed  a  thing  to  be 
astonished  at  no  matter  what  the  cost  of  such  wide-eyed- 
ness  and  open-mouthedness  of  handwriting. 

England! 

Despite  the  rare,  lovely  calm  of  the  woman  who  wrote, 
the  word  was  like  a  cry;  despite  the  white-gowned  figure 
emanating  poise  by  its  posture  and  deliberateness,  and, 
against  it,  the  blackness  of  the  big  word's  texture,  it  was 
like  a  cry  of  thrilling  joy. 

It  was  interregnum — that  strange  hour  from  the  Latin 
dictionary  which  seems  to  find  its  perfect  gem-instances 
only  in  Britain — as  if  the  insinuating  forefinger  of  the 
North  reached  out  purposefully  from  its  spoke-like  hand 
of  metal-hard  lights  to  touch  and  beautify  the  warm 
Gulf  Stream's  child  Civilization,  so  recklessly  indulged 
in  on  this  spot. 

389 


390  The  Great  Way 

To-day,  this  hour  was  the  twilighted  gem  gradually 
fetching  the  night  of  Madame  de  1'EtohVs  London  debut. 
The  pure  white  diamonds  of  the  Thames,  upheld  like 
queer  stars  above  it,  were,  as  if  its  steel-glittering  move- 
ment were  indeed  too  rapid,  sluggish  as  it  was,  for  the 
symbolical  flour  in  it,  flaring  to  yellowish  crown-jewels 
along  the  Embankment.  Ready  to  permeate  the  early 
summer  night  stood  all  the  solidity,  all  the  materialized 
mystery  of  London. 

And  though  this  beautified  room  had  necessarily  closed 
visually  out  the  strolling  parade  of  minutes  of  light  and 
minutes  of  shadow  doomedly  passing  each  other,  and 
turned  itself  brilliant  with  electricity,  it  must  have  but 
the  more  closed  in  the  essence  of  the  great  metropolitan 
mood  and  splendour  with  this  woman  who  could  so  ex- 
press herself,  and  something  more  than  herself,  into  the 
one  repeated  word  that  she  wrote: 

England! 

Beautified  this  room  truly  was.  It  was  a  room  not 
beautiful  in  itself,  unless  by  dint  of  its  ghosts,  for  it  was 
a  dressing-room  in  Covent  Garden ;  lovable,  perhaps,  from 
a  ghost  of  Minnie  Hauk,  or  perhaps  from  a  ghost  of 
Schalchi;  but  suddenly  now,  with  its  loveliness  of  ghosts, 
which  are  creatures  of  but  woodwork  and  memory,  made 
beautiful  too  to  gaze  at,  by  the  coming,  with  her  ac- 
coutrements arbitrary  and  determined  as  the  Gulf 
Stream's,  of  this  breathing  creature.  As  cheerfully  and 
recklessly  as  the  Gulf  Stream  had  brought  humanity  to 
England,  she  had  brought  a  caravan  of  art  to  Covent 
Garden. 

Walling  the  back  of  the  once  naked  spaciousness  of  the 
room  drooped  huge  curtains  of  old  blue  colour,  their 
brocaded  heaviness  hinting  of  tapestry,  and  in  their  wide, 
old-rose-tinted  borders  quite  proving  it.  The  rich  rare 
things  backgrounded  a  grand  piano  of  sumptuously  deli- 
cate lines,  while  two  exquisite  bouquets  of  dead  colours 
answered  each  other  across  the  place — two  screens,  pan- 
elled, high,  delicate,  gilded-edged:  one,  closing  away  the 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         391 

doorway  to  the  room,  composed  of  Fragonards,  the  other, 
shutting  likewise  from  view  her  dressing-space,  a  rival 
miracle  made  of  Watteaus;  so  that,  through  the  room's 
glow  of  gay  loveliness,  across  its  rich  stretch  of  French 
carpet,  a  carpet  typically  Parisian,  black,  a  deep,  a 
soft  black  sprinkled  with  yellow  primroses  for  pattern, 
there  was  a  constant  contretemps  in  the  very  air — be- 
cause, to  the  languid  and  marvellously  mannered  "L'ln- 
different"  of  Watteau,  were  flung  back  the  Fragonard 
"Happy  Hazards  of  the  Swing." 

The  three  walls  left  to  rival  the  rich  old  blue  curtains 
did  so  with  pictures  too — fine  copies,  finely  coloured,  of 
masters  older,  perhaps,  than  even  the  curtains  indeed. 
There  were  Murillos — the  "Betrothal  of  Saint  Catherine," 
of  Cadiz,  and  the  "Saint  Francis  of  Padua";  and  others, 
such  as  did  not  tell  in  some  or  other  betraying  way  of 
the  Peninsula,  possessions  of  the  next  great  temperamen- 
tal love  of  their  owner — Louvre-possessions,  here  in  du- 
plicate, simple  coloured  prints  to  start  with,  then  simply 
varnished,  and  afterward  again  varnished,  until  they  had 
gained  the  very  glow-look  of  oil,  the  very  fragrance  of 
Louvre  colour. 

On  the  desk,  Dresden  figurines  were  parading  with  its 
terra  cotta  ones,  while  into  this  mixed  company  had  crept 
— as  if  for  sympathy,  it  was  so  very  small — a  tiny  hand- 
tinted  copy,  minutely  framed  in  rich  dull  gold,  as  if  in- 
deed it  were  a  very  large  picture,  of  Botticelli's  "Spring." 

Even  a  suggestion  of  purely  social  function  joined  in 
the  miracle-makeshift  of  this  richly  blossoming  room,  for 
just  at  the  back  of  the  white-gowned  figure  at  the  desk 
was  a  diminutive  circular  table,  lace-drenched,  silver- 
glinting,  feasible  only  for  service  of  some  theatrical 
guest,  or  else,  if  for  its  mistress  really  to  dine  before 
some  ensuant  role,  undoubtedly  for  her  to  dine  very  much 
as  Lilli  Lehmann  did  to  sing  Isolde — on  a  drink  of  water 
and  a  bowlful  of  rice.  While  as  undoubtedly  this  woman 
would  have  done  so  with  all  of  the  elegance,  though  cer- 
tainly none  of  the  cause,  of  the  ennuied  lady  in  the 


392  The  Great  Way 

Arabian  Nights  who  ate  Her  bowlful  with  marked  grace 
of  holden  prong  and  one  grain  at  a  time,  for  appear- 
ances, because  she  went  out  (by  implication  against  her 
husband's  rules)  quietly  at  night  to  eat  corpses  in  the 
graveyard. 

Nor  were  the  bouquets  of  this  room  halted  with  either 
this  luxury  or  luxury  of  pictures,  for  midway  between 
the  two  rich  spots  where  stood  the  screen  of  Fragonards 
— "La  Cage,"  and  "La  Poursuite,"  and  "Les  Souvenirs,'* 
and  ever,  as  if  it  intended  to  stop,  or  continue,  right 
there  for  ever,  that  eternal  "Les  Hazards  Heureux  de 
PEscarpolette,"  instead  of  going  home  to  Hertford 
House,  and  the  answering  screen  of  Watteaus — "The 
Indifferent  One,"  and  "A  Masquerade,"  and  "Perfect 
Harmony,"  and  a  wealthy  bit  of  detail  from  "The  De- 
parture for  Cytheria" — appeared  nature  herself — or  her 
representative  as  in  a  visiting-card,  for  the  piano  was 
piled  high  with  luxuriant  examples  of  alive  flowers,  a  soft 
Babel  of  perfumes,  a  lovely  wealth  of  vivid  colours.  Not 
quite  a  riot,  for  they  were  carefully  laid  forth,  as  if  for 
any  after-moment's  right  selection  from  them;  and  not 
quite  a  mass,  for  their  riches,  gamuting  from  pansies 
through  roses  on  and  on  to  orchids,  had  not  been  allowed 
to  stop  from  view  an  ornament  conspicuously  placed, 
before  the  flowers  thought  of  coming  there,  upon  that 
piano.  It  was  a  statuette,  a  pure  and  precious  miniature 
of  the  "Victoire  de  Samothrace,"  not  very  small,  not 
large ;  an  arbitrary  copy,  of  whitest  marble,  instead  of  the 
soft  cream-colour  of  its  great  sponsor  in  the  Louvre ;  the 
scarred  triumph  of  its  onrush  unchecked  by  this  startling, 
snowy  classicism  of  version-colour,  and  her  pedestal  the 
battered  hunk  of  ship  that  belonged  to  her,  but  here, 
ploughing  this  sea  of  flowers,  metamorphosed  to  a  bat- 
tered hunk  of  exquisitely  carven  ebony. 

Some  copy  of  this  winged,  earthen  and  heavenly  thing 
was  always  near  this  woman,  if  not  feasibly  a  statuette, 
at  the  least  some  small  plaster-cast,  then,  some  picture, 
large  or  small;  as  if  Superstition,  unwilling  to  desert  her, 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         393 

had  merely  abandoned  its  old,  dangerous  morbid  pseudo- 
religious  forms  and  transcendentalized  itself  into  a  right- 
eous, evolutionary  thing  for  companionship  with  her. 

If  she  had  been  a  stenographer,  a  post-card  photograph 
of  it  would  have  stood  like  a  goddess  on  her  machine 
and  made  her  spell  better  than  she  did  as  a  prima  donna. 
As  she  was  a  prima  donna,  this  next-door-to-priceless 
version  of  marble  and  ebony  stood  on  her  piano,  and 
made  her  sing  even  more  deliciously  than  she  spoke  or 
spelled. 

And  to-day,  to-night,  she  partook  even  personally  of 
the  Victory,  for  she,  too,  was  in  classically  white  drap- 
eries, which  from  her  sitting  posture  the  more  suggested 
its  sweep  in  their  white  wake  at  the  back  of  her  across 
the  ebony-coloured  carpet  with  its  sprinkled  yellow  prim- 
roses, there  as  if  intentionally  to  respond  to  the  little 
ebony  ship's  waving  ocean  of  flowers  on  the  piano. 

It  was  a  soft  gown  clinging  finely,  in  long  simple  lines, 
about  her,  relieved  in  its  snowy  sheen  only  by  a  rope 
of  heavy  green  jade  beads  that  were  purposefully  as 
unlike  as  possible  to  beads  that  once — many  times — she 
had  worn,  and  that  occasionally,  in  the  absorption  of 
her  writing,  she  lifted  with  both  hands  and  held  a  little 
measure  of  across  her  forehead,  as  if  their  coolness  helped 
concentration  of  thought ;  for  she  was  not,  as  yet,  dressed 
for  whatever  role  she  was  to  sing  to-night,  save  for  her 
hair,  which  was  elaborately  prepared,  piled  high,  in  or- 
nate mounting  waves,  as  if  for  a  meticulous  period  of 
manners.  Her  face  also  was  deliberately  white,  the  lips 
brilliantly  carmined,  in  that  daring  combination  which 
she  could  so  paramountly  employ  for  her  own  delight  as 
a  lady,  as  well  as  for  a  great  crowd's  delight  as  a  watching 
crowd. 

Among  the  rich  utensils  of  her  desk  were  mixed  a  hand- 
mirror,  a  rouge-box,  that  she  had  fetched  from  behind  the 
Watteau  screen ;  a  lip-pencil  had  fallen  to  the  floor. 

Unless  in  her  teens  teeming  with  heart's-blood  thump- 
ing beneath  a  Sevillian  jacket  and  thumped  against  by  a 


394  The  Great  Way 

tambourine,   perhaps   this   woman   had   never  been   more 
beautiful. 

For,  in  radiant  place  of  the  pulsing  beauty-quality  of 
vital  young  youth,  and  of  its  successor,  that  of  the  inno- 
cently false  languor  and  untrue  repose  reflected  from 
what  she  had  learned  with  her  unerrant  vision  to  call  a 
"painted  desert,"  there  shone  now  the  beauty-quality  of 
happiness — a  supreme  quality,  of  happiness  not  supreme, 
merely  in  itself  triumphant,  the  happiness  of  achievement 
in  difficult  world  and  more  difficult  self,  clamped  superbly 
to  Faith. 

As  she  sat  and  with  so  deliberate  movements  of  white 
chiselled  arms  wrote  in  her  little  book,  she  was  a  signifi- 
cant, an  assuredly  painted  picture  of  sophistication,  but 
of  sophistication  that  itself  was  neither  of  paint  nor  of 
desert  sand,  its  clearly  marked  qualifications  being  a  suave 
worldly  dignity,  accustomedness,  delicate  serenity.  It 
was  as  if  Sophistication  with  her  had,  like  Superstition, 
refused  to  leave  her,  and,  in  order  to  be  allowed  to  stay, 
metamorphosed  itself  into  a  righteous,  an  evolutionary 
thing,  a  thing  that  she  had  therefore  gladly  taken  with 
her  in  her  sudden  winged  flight  out  of  the  quick-sanding 
desert  to  the  coast  and  to  the  heights,  coast  and  heights 
akin,  and  dwelling  together,  as  they  wonderfully  do  in 
California,  as  they  still  more  miraculously  do  in  the  fully 
liberated  geography  of  the  soul. 

Thus  Sophistication  had  succeeded  in  continuing  with 
her,  for  just  thus  was  this  woman  loved,  apparently,  by 
forces  as  by  people — of  whom  a  loving  instance  made  itself 
felt  here,  in  one  of  the  accoutrements  of  her  desk ;  for 
upon  it  another  desk  was  superimposed:  a  fascinating 
miniature  thing,  its  various  minute  component  parts  built 
up  into  a  partial  shape  of  pyramid. 

The  woman  loved  it,  not  knowing  whom  to  love;  and 
that  it  occupied  a  sacred  place  upon  her  desk  of  Sheraton 
— sacred  obviously,  as  it  was  guarded  by  a  sharply  defined 
demarkation  of  several  utensils  of  blue-steel,  gold-inlaid 
Toledo-ware,  but  chiefly  a  sharp,  weighty  paper-cutter 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         395 

(as  who  should  say  "Siegfreund!",  or  "Daemmerliebs- 
kind!") — was  in  danger  of  finding  its  secret  nailed  on  both 
the  town  pump  and  the  church  door  by  the  fact  that  its 
little  black  leather  shelves  were  filled,  or  nearly  filled,  by 
little  red  leather  books.  Not  now  were  they  in  their  own 
private  case,  but  this  lived  safely  near-by  them,  in  fact, 
in  this  same  residence,  for  in  two  special  depths  of  it  the 
diva's  Cellini-suggesting  jewel-case,  to  the  left,  fitted  with 
but  a  wee  growl,  while  to  the  right  the  little-red-leather- 
book-case  fitted  exactly,  without  a  growl  at  all. 

Minutiae!  ...  Of  a  life,  expressed  thus,  by  combined 
chance  and  intent,  in  a  flotsam- jetsam  bit  of  a  life's 
apparel.  For  even  in  the  rare  hand-made  jewel-box,  there 
was  a  special  compartment — and  an  empty  one,  as 
jewelry  goes,  for  it  held  but  a  little  fragment  of  inde- 
cipherably  stained  balbriggan,  with  no  accompanying 
baubles  to  protect.  And  its  emptiness  of  other-ware  did 
not  sadden  this  woman.  Here  around  it  in  the  remainder 
of  the  box  were  her  crystal  rosary,  her  various  jewelled 
and  gemmed  trinkets  of  the  great  world's  great  music- 
capitals.  All  her  high-light  treasures.  Only  there  was 
not  here,  as  if  an  empty  grave  in  sooth  meant  a  living 
body,  a  string  of  old,  strangely  blue,  strangely  green, 
delicately  wistful  beads.  As  if  to  make  it  a  very  symbol 
of  Giving,  she  had  left  the  dainty  small  compartment 
dedicated  to  emptiness  and  the  fragmentary  balbriggan. 
The  thought  of  it  with  her  was  a  matter  of  prayer  and 
faith — prayer  that  the  neck  those  beads  surrounded  might 
bear  no  other  yoke;  faith  that  the  heart  they  drooped 
against  might  one  day,  one  starlit  night,  be  held  against 
her  own,  fulfilling  her  prophecy  of  the  violet  days,  the 
inspired  day,  of  Cadiz. 

And  as  the  moments  sped,  and  the  Traviata-like 
feathered-pen  either  sped  or  deliberately  paused  against 
the  moment  of  Madame  de  1'Etoile's  London  premiere, 
the  woman's  present  beauty  was  not  alone  from  all  these 
things.  Its  two  calms  of  classicism  and  sophistication 
were  urged,  and  intensified,  and  teased  by  a  mood,  a 


396  The  Great  Way 

mood  that  would  have  painted  her  cheeks  if  it  could,  and 
that  as  it  could  not,  painted  the  air — a  mood  of  impendant 
debut,  of  expectancy,  of  holiday,  of  very  May-Day, 
though  it  was  not  May;  for  as  she  wrote  she  satisfiedly 
read  aloud,  like  charges  brandished  against  the  armour 
of  her  classical  appearance,  some  of  the  passages  that  she 
wrote  in  her  book ;  and  she  did  this  most  characteristically, 
not  merely  speaking  aloud  to  herself  as  idiots  are  wrong- 
accused  of  monopolizing;  but  doing  so  with  someone 
present,  and  as  if  that  someone  positively  did  not  matter. 

For  Madame  de  1'Etoile  was  not  alone. 

As  if  a  great  art  collector  had  passed  a  semester  after 
semesters  toward  a  final  exhibition  of  precious  taste,  and 
at  the  then  eleventh  hour  turned  his  examination  paper 
from  a  masterpiece  into  a  hardware  store  by  one  fell 
addendum  of  gauche  grotesquerie,  there  was  one  more  chief 
decoration  in  this  lovely  room. 

Stiffly  on  a  fragile  French  gilt  chair,  midway,  indeed, 
centrifugally  between  many  things,  the  piano,  and  the 
Fragonard  screen,  and  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  and  the 
Watteau  screen,  and  the  flowers,  and  the  devil,  and  the 
deep  sea,  and  forty  and  fifty,  sat  Becket. 

Elise  having  fallen  by  the  great  wayside  into  matri- 
mony, Madame  de  1'Etoile,  with  equally  delightful  reck- 
lessness, had  embarked  for  the  British  Islands  unattended ; 
and  almost  disheartened  by  the  scant  likelihoods  among 
innumerable  applicants  to  her  newspaper-advertised  need, 
had  in  a  dangerously  late  moment,  and  after  but  one  long, 
all-drinking  look  at  her,  engaged  the  Becket  as  her  lady's- 
maid.  Maid  was  a  necessary  misnomer  for  this  treasure, 
which  was  not  a  virginal  one,  for  Becket  was  not  Becket 
alone,  and  Jane  Becket,  but  Mrs.  Jane  Becket. 

If  Jane  had  been  the  great  God  Budd,  a  holy  idol  made 
of  mud,  she  would  have  been  similar,  but  she  would  not 
have  been  entirely  herself,  for  she  would  so  have  been  a 
little  too  softly  Oriental.  As  she  was,  she  was  herself 
entirely. 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         397 

God  had  gouged  Jane  out  of  wood  that  only  He  knew 
the  name  of,  with  great  square  hacks. 

If  she  had  been  Gibraltar  instead  of  Jane,  there  would 
have  needed  no  name  of  a  life-insurance  sign  printed  hugely 
in  stereotype  or  electric  lights  across  her  to  identify  her. 
Had  she  been  one  of  Madame  de  1'Etoile's  successive 
little  red  books  instead  of  one  of  her  successive  lady's- 
maids,  there  would  have  needed  no  such  writing  across 
her  as  Madame  was  engaged  in  now,  of  that  word 
"England!" 

As  she  sat  so  like  an  island  on  her  fragile  French  gilt 
chair,  she  was  in  beautiful,  dutiful  agony.  Despite  the 
shocking  experience  of  matrimony  (a  shock  that  must 
have  been  to  Jane  such  as  only  a  last  outrage  of  the  Gulf 
Stream  can  account  for)  she  was  a  mammal  of  great 
purity  of  mind.  Partly — and  sadly  only  partly — because 
of  this  arbitrary  reading  aloud,  she  thought  her  mistress 
was  insane  (Madame's  third  experience  of  this  gloomy 
kind)  instead  of  perceiving  the  simple  and  far  happier 
truth — that  she  was  drunk. 

Least  of  all  would  have  occurred  to  Jane  the  manner 
and  means  of  her  getting  drunk — with  happiness. 

England! 

After  long  hours,  again  I  have  talked  to  you,  my  own,  in 
England — talked  much,  being  as  I  am,  always  myself  entirely 
in  my  little  red  book,  and  even  in  England,  I  find — your 
England,  the  England  that  you  loved,  and  loved  even  more 
than  you  loved  your  Estados  Unidos,  and  once  more  I  am 
await,  and  now,  this  time,  this  wonderful  time,  await  without 
one  single  fright,  to  conquer  still  one  more  Conqueror! 

And  it  was  with  a  great  flourish,  first  of  her  arm  and 
then  of  her  pen,  that  once  more  she  breathed  and  wrote  it : 

England!  That  word  means  violets,  Isabel — most  of  all 
that  word  means  you — my  own — Jose — Jose  Luis  .  .  .  but 
anyway,  violets,  Isabel,  and 


398  The  Great  Way 

Once  more  there  was  a  great  flourish  of  her  lovely 
white-draped  arm  and  lovely  feathered  pen,  once  more 
she  spoke  quite  aloud,  to  the  sharp  physical  nervous  jolt 
of  God's  own  oaken  Becket: 

Traditions!  Ah,  my  own,  until  now  I  have  been  a  woman 
of  manana.  To-day,  I  am  the  woman  of  to-night !  And  oh, 
my  own,  nothing,  nothing  that  I  can  have  said  possibly  to 
you  in  my  whole  little  red  books  has  told  myself  to  you  more 
than  does  that  sentence !  If  at  last,  after  and  after  and  after 
all,  you  are  ever  to  read,  you  will  now  know  that  there  has 
been  in  this  world  a  love  that  trembled  often,  and  that  wavered 
once — yes,  did  waver  once — but  once  only,  and  in  a  woman 
then  who  was  not  I,  but  only  a  painted  thing  that  looked 
like  me — a  prettily  tinted  hour-glass  of  sand  (except  in 
my  figure,  dear,  which  was  as  lovely  then — almost — as  it  is 
now)  that  marked  the  time,  and  only  thought  itself  Time, 
and  Truth,  and  Space  and  all  Realities.  ...  I  have  confessed 
to  you  how  I  stopped  paying  in  the  streets  as  I  used,  how 
God  sharply  answered  me  in  a  way  to  show  me  the  uncertain 
amount  was  overpaid.  Now,  my  Jose,  because  something 
indeed,  and  something  large,  remained  not  yet  fully  paid — 
now,  as  to  that  great  debt  to  People,  to — Society — ah,  my 
Jose,  there  now  is  a  happy  thing  that  I  can  tell  you.  It  is 
that  if  I  sing  to-night  as  I  believe  and  intend  I  will  sing,  then 
to-night,  oh,  to-night  I  honourably  think  will  have  paid  that 
great  debt !  Yes,  and  I  say  so  now  and  here  before  the  trial 
of  it,  because  there  will  be  the  ending,  indeed,  this  time,  the 
real — moreover,  dear,  the  true — ending,  of  my  Little  Red 
Book,  for  then  it,  and  I,  can  afford  to  simply  sit,  and  wait, 
and  sing  for  you.  For  People  too — always,  always.  But 
without  duty.  And  I  am  happy ! 

As  if  the  taxing  force  of  so  daring  an  assertion  had 
brought  her  to  momentary  pause,  and  with  it  reminded 
her  that  she  was  not  entirely  alone,  she  suddenly  laid  down 
the  pen.  But  as  though  nothing,  not  even  the  present 
duty  of  authority,  could  quite  tear  her  from  the  subject 
of  her  little  book,  it  was  casually,  and  without  looking 
up,  that  she  said  to  her  waiting  maid,  her  agonizedly 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         399 

waiting  lady's-maid,  Becket,  Jane  Becket,  God's  Becket's 
Jane: 

"Gwendolean,  sit  down !" 

"Yes,  madam!"  cried  Becket,  instantaneously,  terri- 
fiedly  standing  up.  Her  cry  of  Madame's  title  was  with- 
out an  "e,"  but  Madame  had  spelling  of  her  own  to  care 
for,  and  was  proceeding  with  it. 

Yes,  my  own,  I  have  with  my  voice,  my  honest  means, 
reached  England,  which  for  so  long  has  seemed  always  to  me, 
in  the  far  distance,  though  but  an  island  in  the  ocean,  yet  the 
very  pinnacle  of  my  earthly  climbing  toward  you !  And  from 
to-morrow,  if  I  have  sung,  as  I  will  sing,  to-night,  I  will 

dare,  and  I  dare  now  to  tell  you  that  I  will  dare,  to But 

before  I  do  dare  that  word,  my  own,  let  me  tell  you  how 
very  prominent  I  am!  Though  but  hours,  almost,  indeed, 
scarcely  days,  since  I  have  came  here,  I  have  been  already 
forth  into  society.  I  am  very  distinguished !  And  I  find  that 
the  English  and  American  speaking  races  differ  in  their  lan- 
guage. The  English  mispronounce  the  pretty  word  "Opera." 
In  London,  it  is  Grand  Uproar !  And  when  I  explain  them 
about  it,  and  making  an  English  countenance  mispronounce  it 
for  them  the  way  they  do,  they  laugh  at  me!  And  the  more 
and  more  when  I  then  say  again,  in  my  anger,  "Grand  Up- 
roar!" Well,  there  will  be  some  grand  uproar  to-night,  my 
own.  And  then  I  will  dare,  and  now  at  last  dare  to  tell  you 
that  I  will  dare,  really,  really  at  last,  to — hope! 

Again  it  was  as  if  the  very  exuberance  of  her  written 
expression  felled  the  quill  from  her  hand,  and  this  time, 
as  if  the  word  "hope"  were  one  that  must  lift  the  eyes, 
she  saw  Becket,  and  for  a  long  moment  contemplatively 
absorbed  the  vision  of  her. 

"Oh,"  she  said  at  last,  "I  see !    Stand  up !" 

And  Becket  instantly,  obediently,  sat  down. 

Madame  went  on  writing.  Once  she  looked  up  sus- 
piciously to  see  whether  Becket  had  dared  to  rise  again, 
but  God's  own  was  seated  in  dutiful  motionless  agony  on 
the  sweet  gilt  chair,  and  Madame  continued  writing 


400  The  Great  Way 

satisfiedly,  to  the  end  of  her  page,  and  then  with  a  long 
relieving  sigh,  sat  back. 

"That  was  right,  the  way  you  obeyed  me,  Gwendolean ! 
I  am  very  pleased  with  you." 

Becket  almost  rose,  but  by  terrific  will-power  remained 
seated,  her  hands  stretched  forth. 

"Oh,  madam,"  she  cried,  clasping  them  in  prayer,  "if 
you  would  only  let  me  stand  in  your  presence !" 

"Nor 

Madame  had  cried  it  so  swiftly,  loudly,  that  Becket 
had  popped  straight  up,  as  if  the  power  had  been  cham- 
pagne and  she  a  cork,  and  with  a  great  gesture  Madame 
spoke  more  swiftly,  loudly  still:  "STAND  UP!" 

And  Becket  sank  down  moaning. 

"I  do  it,"  explained  Madame  serenely,  "to  make  my 
servants  comfortable.  How  can  /  be  comfortable  as  I 
turn  myself  into  little  red  books  if  I  know  that  you  for 
ever  more  stand  up  ? — No,  no !  That  was  not  an  order ! 
You  were  doing  very  nicely,  and  I  was  appreciating  it. 
You  are  very  obedient.  We  begin  to  understand  each 
other.  At  the  least,  I  you.  Anyway,  be  cheerful,  Gwen- 
dolean !  You  will  love  me  afterward.  They  all  do !" 

Becket  again  clasped  forth  her  hands  in  prayer. 

"Oh,  madam,"  she  cried,  "I  would  love  you  now,  sitting 
or  standing,  if  you  would  only  call  me  by  my  right  name : 
Jane!" 

Madame  seemed  almost  to  have  sprung  up  herself,  so 
huge  and  spontaneous  was  her  Latin  gesture. 

"NO !  NO  !  I  have  a  special  reason !  There  is  some- 
thing in  my  history  makes  me  do  it." 

"Oh,  madam,"  cried  Becket  in  pitiful  desperation,  hold- 
ing herself  to  the  chair,  "I  have  no  wish  to  poke  into  your 
private  past,  but  I  am  sure  you  can  have  no  just  reason 
for  calling  me  Gwendolean !" 

"Ah,  but  I  have!"  said  Madame  de  1'Etoile.  "You 
remind  me  of  a  little  room  I  had  once,  and  of  some 
thoughts  I  had  there  that  were  a  help  to  me  in  dressing 
prettily  at  that  time!  And  the  way  I  spell  you — in  such 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         401 

a  fashionable  English  way,"  and  her  voice  became 
exquisite  in  her  care  of  her  pronunciation,  "G-W-E-N- 
D-O-L-Y-N,  Gwendolean,  you  see  you  have  an  /  Onega 
in  you !" 

"I  have  what  in  me?"  Becket,  half  rising,  half  sink- 
ing, cried  it  in  despair  and  terror.  "So  help  me  God, 
madam,  of  what  do  you  accuse  me?" 

Madame  de  1'Etoile,  gazing  at  her  with  enormous  con- 
templation, clasped  her  hands  ecstatically. 

"My  Gwendolean,  I  assure  you  you  seem  to  me  to  be 
a  pure,  unadulterated  kind  of  woman !  I  accuse  you  of 
nothing,  except  of  compassing  one  letter  of  the  alphabet. 
In  English,  it  is  the  strangest  letter  next  to  double-you, 
and  is  called  Y,  oo-eye,  but  in  Spanish  it  is  named  the 
Greek  I,  /  Griega.  And  of  that  itself  you  are  not  guilty, 
except  in  having  accepted  a  position  with  me,  and  thereby 
privileging  me  the  right  to  christen  you.  Because, 
Gwendolean,  everyone  who  comes  into  my  service  begins  a 
wonderful,  miraculous  new  existence !" 

"But  I  did  not  need  a  new  existence,  madam !"  pleaded 
Becket,  pitiably  desperate.  "I  am  sure  you  do  not  mean 
your  charges,  madam!" 

After  an  instant's  thought,  Madame  de  PEtoile  reverted 
to  her  little  book. 

My  own,  I  am  so  gay,  I  am  going  actually  to  play  the 
grand  pianoforte ;  but  first  let  me  tell  you  one,  one  more  thing, 
my  own !  On  this  night,  leaving  aside  all  my  other  triumphs, 
yes,  even  this  greatest  of  them  all  about  to  be,  think  of  this, 
my  own:  J  have  a  beautiful  maid,  named  Gwendolyn! 

She  resolutely  put  the  little  book  away  upon  its  shelf, 
but  spoke  to  it  even  as  she  did  so. 

"Now  I  can  do  what  I  love  next  best  to  talking  to 
you,  my  own!" 

She  went  over  to  the  piano.  One  great  book  stood 
upon  it.  It  was  a  score  of  La  Tosca,  solitary,  possessive, 
apparently,  of  the  room,  of  the  night.  Of  her  white, 


402  The  Great  Way 

languidly  active  hands,  one  strayed  over  the  keys,  the 
other  through  the  leaves;  but  it  was  far  on  in  the  bulky 
book  that  her  voice,  first  a  mere  humming,  then  with  full 
tones,  joined,  with  a  fall  to  the  keyboard  of  that  other 
hand,  the  sounding  notes  of  the  piano.  Absorbedly,  she 
was  thinking,  feeling,  partially  phrasing,  "Vissi  d'Arte, 
vissi  d'Amore."  But  as  if  the  wrapping  lyricism  that  she 
had  brought  about  herself  were  too  precious  a  cup  to 
quaff  entire  at  this  transient  sand-grind  of  the  running 
hour,  she  stopped  abruptly,  wilfully  upon  the  note  that 
would  have  fetched  the  room  resonant  as  a  gold  and  silver 
organ  with  the  longing  passion  of  her  voice  had  she  in- 
dulged it — that  great  swelling  note  which  lifts  the  hotly 
yearning  melody  from  one  phase  to  another,  indeed  as  if 
from  one  melody  to  a  transcendentalized  entity  of  music. 
This  stopping  right  here  was  happy  enough  for  her,  whose 
mind  could  and  presumably  did  continue  it;  but  it  was 
very  unhappy  for  Becket,  who  passionately  yearned  for 
her  to  drop  that  other  boot  of  Vissi  d'Arte  e  A  more  on 
the  ceiling  with  the  loudest  thud  possible.  For  this  had 
happened  before;  more  than  once  before;  and  God's 
Becket's  nerves  had  involuntarily  taken  to  counting  those 
tones  of  Tosca^s  lament  and  to  longing  to  know,  arith- 
metically, which  note  it  was  that  began,  and  did  not 
continue — to  know  whether  it  was  the  sixty-first,  or  sixty- 
second  or  sixty-third  vocal  tone ;  to  longing,  and  to  fear- 
ing that  never  would  they  know,  so  difficult  was  it  not  to 
count  the  piano  tones  too,  which  were  naturally  uncount- 
able. But  her  treadmill  torture  was  now  interrupted  by 
further  vocal  tones,  speaking  ones  that  demanded  mili- 
taristic attention,  for  with  hands  clasping  themselves 
determinedly  against  further  playing  into  her  lap, 
Madame  spoke  sidewise  to  her  lady's-maid: 

"Gwendolean,  when  I  have  lost  my  voice,  I  am  going 
to  be  a  painters'  model,  on  account  of  my  vivacity.  Gwen- 
dolean, look !"  And  Becket  shot  to  her  feet.  "No, 
Gwendolean,  while  I  perform  this,  you  have  positively  got 
to  stand!"  And  Becket  sat  down.  "That  is  right.  Now, 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         403 

look  first  at  that  Fragonard  screen  over  there."  And 
Becket  in  earnest  agony  looked.  "That  central  one, 
Gwendolean,  is  called  'Les  Hazards  Heureux  de 
1'Escarpolette,'  which  for  general  purposes  means,  after 
all,  only  'The  Swing.'  Is  not  the  lady  spirited  as  she 
bounds  through  the  air,  never  minding  her  slipper  that 
flies  off,  whether  or  not  it  shall  hit  her  cavalier?  Now, 
to  prove  to  you  I  can  save  us  from  starvation  in  our  old 
age,  Gwendolean,  look  at  me!  This  tableau  very  vivant 
of  mine  is  called,  'Fragonard,  Swinging' !" 

And  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  with  a  flight  of  her  hands 
upward,  a  perilous  hurling  of  her  body  backward,  swirled 
around  upon  the  piano-stool,  her  small  feet  stretched  for- 
ward, her  Grecian  garments  a  fluttering  whirlpool,  the 
whole  of  her  and  of  her  breathless  motion  indeed  a 
tableau  vivant  of  the  rococo  lady  so  like  that  only  a  deep 
realty  of  art  could  have  wrought  so  superb  an  absurdity. 
And  furthermore,  realism  fled  merging  into  the  literal,  for 
her  little  slipper  had  projectiled  through  the  air,  and  with 
such  fatal  precision  sped  straight  home  to  the  sacred 
centre  of  Mrs.  Becket,  that  a  sharp  gasp  came  not  from 
her  but  from  the  gifted  prima  donna. 

"Indeed,  indeed,  I  did  not  intend  it,  Gwendolean! 
Yes,  you  may  sit  down  for  a  moment,  in  the  circumstances. 
Forgive  me!  But  I  see  from  your  face  that  you  do  not 
suspect  me.  Be  optimistical,  for  I  am  not  like  this  every 

day.     In  fact,  very  seldom.     You  see Thank  you, 

Gwendolean." 

She  had  leant  forward,  her  hands  clasped  about  her 
knee,  and  Becket,  piously  thankful  for  work  to  do,  had 
knelt  and  was  returning  the  errant  slipper  to  its  dainty 
silkened  foot. 

"You  see,  this  is  a  very  great  night  for  me.  Imagine, 
I  am  to  sing  in  Covent  Garden!  Consider  my  promi- 
nence !  Why,  the  great  singer  Mary  Garden  named 
herself  after  this  theatre — if  you  will  only  believe  it, 
Gwendolean !  And  in  that  little  misfortune  just  now, 
Gwendolean,  I  am  merely  like  the  Irish  caballero,  who  was 


404.  The  Great  Way 

accused  that  he  beat  his  wife,  and  in  defence  he  answered 
that  he  had  never  once  lifted  his  hand  against  her  when 
he  had  his  boots  on.  That  is  a  wonderful  story,  Gwen- 
dolean,  as  dazzling  and  confusing  as  my  diamonds.  Great 
scholars  contend  as  to  whether  he  was  innocent  or  guilty. 
Now,  that  other  picture,  the  one  next  to  'L'Escarpo- 
lette' — "  And  with  a  low  smothered  moan  Becket,  after 
her  all-short  reprieve,  returned  to  her  gilded  chair,  and 
Madame  proceeded  to  the  be-laced  and  be-silvered  minia- 
ture dining-table — "is  called  'La  Cage,'  and  study  the 
upheld  little  finger  of  the  hand  holding  the  birdcage, 
Gwendolean !  Have  you  seen  anything  else  so  degagee  ? 
You  will  this  moment!  Look!  'Fragonard,  Serving 
Soup'!" 

And  she  lifted  toward  her  ear  a  rococo  ladle,  and  gazed 
across  at  Becket.  Becket  was  weeping. 

"I  know  these  studies  are  hard  for  you,  Gwendolean, 
but  this  shows  you  how,  if  I  cannot  get  painters'  model- 
ling to  do  from  my  vivacity,  I  can  from  my  elegance. 
One  must  be  trained  for  emergencies,  and  if  I  should 
return  to  Germany,  and  decide  there,  for  instance,  that 
you  had  talent  for  the  stage,  all  this  would  be  good  for 
you,  for  they  are  thorough  there,  and  your  lot  would  be 
harder  than  as  my  maid-in-waiting.  Doubtless  one  of 
your  first  parts  would  be  the  withasouptureencomingin- 
maid !  Have  you  not  your  camera  about  you,  Gwendo- 
lean ?  You  should  be  taking  my  photographs !  You  could 
sell  them  after  to-morrow  for  large  sums !" 

Becket  was  sobbing. 

"It  is  a  large  sum  that  keeps  me  with  you,  madam ! 
I  love  you,  indeed,  but  I  'ave  made  a  very  great  sacrifice 
for  you,  madam !  'Arsh  words  at  'ome !  My  'usband 
objected  to  my  wardrobing  a  diver!  'E  could  not  under- 
stand you  was  a  woman !  And  now  'e  understands  you  is 
Annette  Kellermann !" 

"Alas,  Gwendolean,"  sighed  Madame,  "I  cannot  swim 
through  your  tears,  anyway ;  so  let  us  plunge  into  work ! 
You  were  so  contented  putting  on  my  slipper!  My  part 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         405 

is  arduous  to-night,  and  its  harness  is  arduous  too,  so  let 
us  rehearse  once  more!"  And  with  a  concluding  loud 
sob,  one  of  joy,  Becket  started  toward  her. 

"But  wait  one  moment,  Gwendolean.  Yes,  just  one 
moment  I  promise  you!  I  have  just  thought  of  some- 
thing, and  I  am  even  more  important  to  myself  as  an 
authoress  than  as  a  diver!" 

And  with  Becket  left  in  torture  between  the  etiquettes 
of  standing  and  sitting,  a  delicate,  an  elfin  situation, 
Madame  went  to  the  desk,  re-secured  the  little  red  book, 
and  wrote. 

My  own,  though  I  have  boasted  to  you  I  have  been  into 
English  society,  I  did  not  equally  confess  to  you  that  my 
personality  sometimes  gives  the  wrong  thrill.  Some  things  are 
more  rigid  than  even  in  the  Estados  Unidos.  In  England  it  is 
not  fashionable  to  say  "Holy  God,  what  a  pudding!"  even  to 
please  your  hostess.  Grand  Uproar  again ! 

Leaving  the  small  volume  open  and  idle,  as  if  further 
vital  matters  of  authorship  might  occur  to  her,  she  turned 
past  the  little  table  and  toward  the  screen  of  Watteaus ; 
and  hard  upon  her  motion  Becket  sped  to  her,  and  in  her 
speeding,  marked  herself  with  capacity,  broke  herself  out 
with  a  stigmata  of  mechanical  engineering.  In  her  flying 
voyage,  equally  suggestive  of  the  "Winged  Victory"  and 
a  guinea-hen,  swooping  up  from  the  floor  the  fallen  lip- 
pencil,  sweeping  as  with  her  other  wing  from  the  desk 
its  companion  implements,  she  yet  outdistanced  Madame 
de  1'Etoile's  hand  to  the  screen  and  stood  a  slab  of  it 
aside,  thus  adding,  in  this  fair  little  district  of  the  room, 
to  the  function-colour  of  the  diminutive  dining-table,  snow- 
tint  and  silver,  a  dainty  vista  of  colour-of-boM*?otr.  Silver 
again,  for  there  was  a  glimpse  of  a  garment  of  sheer 
glittering  silver,  but  chiefly  pink,  and  pink,  a  succession 
of  pinks,  shaded,  graded,  a  very  crown  of  them,  for 
dominating  here  was  a  hat,  huge,  and  huger  with  ostrich- 
plumes  ;  innumerable ;  of  graduated  sizes,  graduated  rose- 


406  The  Great  Way 

tones,  down  into  the  palest,  from  up  into  the  Blush-of- 
Malta  that  Daisy  would  have  lusted  for ;  and  with  ribbons 
— great,  drooping  ribbons,  of  the  kind  that  loop  under  the 
chin,  and  that  do  not  do  any  good  to  the  chin,  or  to  the 
hat,  but  only  to  the  heart,  and  to  the  eyesight.  But 
with  this  Madame  was  not  now  concerned;  nor,  quite  as 
yet,  with  a  great  staff  that  leaned  behind  it. 

"Now,  Gwendolean,  in  this  role,  as  I  tried  to  show 
you  at  rehearsal  yesterday,  and  when,  indeed,  you  were 
very  praiseworthy,  I  must  be  very  so-and-so  as  I  go  in. 
Even  more  so  than  in  most  grand  uproars.  Now,  in  that 
last  terrible  moment,  I  must  not  even  have  to  speak  to 
you.  So,  when  this  arm  does  this,  exactly  so,  it  means 
you  are  to  give  me  my  bouquets  of  flowers — which 
bouquets  of  flowers,  on  this  particular  night,  we  will 
decide  later " 

But  Becket,  in  a  desperate  ambition  that  would  have 
fortified  her  to  interrupt  Saints  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke 
and  John,  cut  her  short  untimely. 

"Oh,  madam,  will  you  not  please  decide  now?  Thank- 
ing you  in  the  past,  your  last  summons  will  be  soon,  and 
your  future  call  is  presently !" 

And  as  she  had  cleaved  Madame's  sentence  she  cleaved 
the  air,  travelling  like  an  aviatrix  to  the  piano  and  back 
even  as  she  spoke,  and  piled  upon  her  a  great  sheaf  of 
orchids. 

Debonairly  Madame  received  them  in  the  crook  of  her 
akimboed  arm,  and  debonair  was  her  reply. 

"Excellent  waiting-woman,  I  have  missed  only  one  call 
in  my  whole  career,  and  that  was  from  the  King  and 
Queen.  You  see,  they  did  not  come!  But  they  are  com- 
ing to-night,  so  be  cheerful,  Gwendolean !  Never  fear  for 
us,  for  in  action  you  are  wonderful.  Now,  when  this  arm 

does  this,  so "  And  she  swept  her  right  arm  wide 

with  a  great  gesture  level  with  her  shoulder,  "then :  My 
staff!" 

Praise  had  not  undone  Becket.  It  had  not  been  pre- 
mature. She  had  received  it  with  due  gratitude  and  from 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         407 

it  due  stimulus.  And  neither  had  Madame's  great  gesture 
and  posture  done  her  much  harm,  magnificent  as  they 
were,  startling  as  were  the  seeming  heightening  of  her  to 
a  thing  like  the  Victory,  and  the  statuesque  portrait  of 
her  with  that  reckless  wealth  of  orchids  and  that  forth- 
flung  marble  arm.  These  miracles,  Becket  had  glimpsed 
yesterday,  and  they  merely  helped  toward  her  downfall^ 
giving  her  one  instant's  breathless  pause  in  which  Madame 
repeated  the  gesture  and  the  command,  "My  sta-a-aff !" 

It  was  this  repeated  word,  so  simple,  and  with  it, 
Madame's  countenance,  so  involved,  that  brought  about 
the  Becket's  wrack  and  ruin. 

For  in  that  instant's  surprising  pause  of  Becket's, 
irresistible  temptation  had  come  upon  Madame  as  she 
gazed  at  her,  and  with  that  very  English  word  she  had 
made  a  very  English  face,  the  electricity  of  her  mood 
outstripping  with  it  even  her  graphic  Fragonards — a  face 
as  vivid  as  her  intonation  very  British-wise  of  "Sta-a-aff  !5> 
— a  more  than  very  English  face,  like  King  George  on  a 
postage-stamp,  or  even  off  it,  a  face  that  Becket  should 
have  liked,  save  that  Becket  evidently  feared  things  where 
they  did  not  belong,  so  that  she  stood  paralyzed,  motion- 
less but  for  tears  coursing  from  her  eyes,  and  fascinatedr 
as  if  the  opera-singer  were  a  snake,  and  she  no  longer  a 
Victory  or  a  guinea-hen,  but  a  collapsible  and  temporarily 
undirigible  sparrow.  And  possibly  from  a  sudden  real 
fear  of  her  own  for  the  triumph  of  her  night,  possibly, 
quite  possibly,  from  a  thrilled  and  overpowering  instinct 
to  do  wrong,  Madame  de  1'Etoile  made  the  huge  gesture 
once  more,  and  the  command  too,  but  in  a  variant  form 
and  so  loudly  that  she  astonished  even  herself: 

"My  cane — Jane!" 

And  into  clamorous  dolour  Becket  burst — as  loud  as 
any  diver,  and  as  salt  and  wet,  and  fled,  again  the 
aviatrix,  the  Victory,  the  guinea-hen,  back  to  her  gilded 
chair,  and  sat  upon  it,  streaming  and  handclasped  and 
moaning. 

Motionless,  unthinking  to  drop  either  the  orchids  or 


408  The  Great  Way 

the  marble  arm,  the  diva  gazed  upon  her  fatal  work, 
casting  about  for  remedies. 

And  one  came,  in  the  God-given  nature  of  an  inter- 
ruption, from  across  the  room — indeed  from  across  the 
Fragonards  that  basically  had  levered  all  this  misery. 

Over  the  screen  appeared  a  lax,  thin  hand,  peculiarly 
signalling,  its  little  finger  as  far  outstretched  as  that  of 
"La  Cage"  itself,  and  with  the  further  elegance  of  an 
enormous  diamond  ring  upon  it;  and  as  around  the  edge 
peered  the  Maestro's  face,  and  into  the  room  came  the 
rest  of  him  too,  with  the  silence  and  suavity  of  some 
warm  shadow  stretching  toward  the  sun  without  which  it 
could  not  exist,  gone  were  Becket  and  English  accents 
from  the  singer's  mind.  For  still  one  moment  she  stood 
as  she  had  been,  replete  with  orchids,  outflung  arm  and 
white  loveliness  of  sweeping  draperies,  drinking  in  not  the 
cavernous  admiration  in  his  startled  eyes,  for  she  did  not 
think  of  it,  but  the  love  in  them;  and  then  with  both  arms 
clasping  round  the  great  orchids,  she  started  toward  him. 

But  her  dispelling  movement  bringing  him  toward  her, 
brought  the  relieved  and  subsiding  Becket  into  his  line 
of  adventure,  and  he  stopped  short,  up-eyebrowed,  at 
this  other  picture.  It  did  not  frighten  her.  Much  likelier 
might  sophisticated  persons  have  been  frightened,  for  this 
child  dressed  for  a  party,  as  he  certainly  was  to-night, 
was  a  thing  rare  as  Becket  after  its  different  manner — 
a  thing  of  diamonds  and  of  hair  brushed  most  carefully 
back,  but  the  more  profound  in  its  ebony  rush  for  that, 
and  of  pomade,  and  a  red  carnation,  and  brilliantine,  and 
a  whole  bottle  of  the  most  awful  smell  on  earth,  Sucheau's 
"Wanda  de  PEtoile"  perfume. 

In  Becket's  devout  relief  at  such  comparative  luxuries 
as  his  presence,  even  his  voice  as  he  gazed  widely  at  her, 
widely  indeed  because  she  was  entire  news  to  him,  did  not 
alarm  her. 

"Shoo-oo-oo-er !"  he  said,  and  the  strange  word  was 
Gilead  balm  to  Becket. 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale          409 

As  if  the  stranger  portrait  needed  a  footnote  for 
visitors,  Madame  de  1'Etoile  explained  it. 

"She  is  my  Agony  Column.  I  cut  her  out  of  a  news- 
paper. She  thinks  I  am  a  monster,  because  I  have  gaven 
her  a  beautiful  name !" 

With  all  his  unconscious  emanations  of  weird  gentle- 
ness, he  looked  studiously  from  the  Becket  to  the  de 
1'Etoile,  and  back  again  to  the  drying  weeper. 

"Shoo-oo-oo-er!"  he  said,  addressing  her  soothingly 
again,  nodding  his  head  understandingly.  "It  is  a  terrible 
thing  to  be  alone  with  the  insane!'*  And  a  great  light 
of  grateful  love,  the  kind  of  love  that  would  make  a 
woman  marry  her  grandfather's  physician,  came  into 
Becket's  eyes  for  him. 

"Well,  well,"  sighed  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  "I  suppose 
I  am  rather  too  much  myself  to-night!  Gwendolean,  go 
out  and  look  at  the  stage-hands  until  you  are  happy !" 

"Oh,  madam,  you  wrong  me !"  cried  Becket  "My 
'usband,  madam,  'as  threw  me  down  stairs  on  yout 
account,  but  'e  ain't  never  took  away  my  character !" 

"Yes,  yes !"  insisted  Madame  imperiously,  fearful  of 
another  flood  toward.  "Go  look  at  every  one  of  them, 
until  you  are  as  happy  as  I  am!" 

Becket  went,  indeed  thankful  enough  to  go,  but  heavily 
weeping  again,  and  with  a  last  hope  for  justice: 

"It  is  false,  madam !" 

When  she  had  disappeared,  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  orchids 
and  all,  went  straight  into  the  Maestro's  arms. 

"These  are  not  mine,"  he  said,  tenderly  touching  the 
rich  flowers,  tenderly  jesting,  "and  yet  you  carry  them!" 

She  looked  up  at  him,  leaning  back  a  little  in  the 
embrace  that  yet  held  her. 

"They  are  yours — therefore  I  carried  them — to  you!" 

His  arms  released  her,  to  clasp  the  flowers  in  his  delight 
at  her  sweet  swift  coquetry. 

"To  remember  your  greatest  night !" 

"Our  greatest  night !"  she  answered  gently. 


410  The  Great  Way 

He  hugged  the  orchids  with  one  arm,  her,  with  the 
other. 

"You  are  too  sweet,  my  own !" 

Her  eyes  looked  up  at  him  quickly,  then  lowered,  and 
her  words  were  marvellous  with  a  double  dignity,  that  of 
both  reserve  and  full  love. 

"I — I  would  not  allow  to  call  me  that  anyone  else  on 
earth,  except — 'my  own.'  But — it  is  your  right,  your 
privilege,  darling,  for  I  am  your  own.  You  have  created 
me.  You  did  not  create  who  I  used  to  be;  but  you  have 
created  who  I  am,  Wanda  de  1'Etoile !" 

"That,"  he  said  swiftly,  with  a  sudden  impulse  of  hot 
fire,  "that  is  why  I  always  at  this  hour,  on  these  grand 
nights,  fear  for  you!  All  the  times  I  have  trusted  you, 
all  times  you  have  made  me  near  madness  with  pride  and 
happiness;  yet  trusting  you,  my  own,  all  those  times  I 
have  distrusted  God,  I  suppose,  for  all  musicians  are  very 
egotistical.  Of  course,  in  my  case,  that  is  all  right,  for 
I  am  a  great  genius.  But  it  is  a  great  genius's  nerves, 
too,  that  I  have  for  you.  Reassure  me,  that,  this  night, 
you  are  not  afraid?" 

Her  reply  was  with  a  sweeping  literal  abandon  of 
gesture,  in  its  one  word  was  a  lovely,  confident  quality 
of  laughter. 

"Afraid!" 

He  clasped  her  back  to  him  almost  self-reproachfully. 

"It  is  perhaps  that  for  those  nights,  you  will  always 
choose  a  role  new  for  you.  If  but  in  each  new  country  you 
would  but  sing  something  that  we  know  makes  you  great ! 
I  think  that  is  one  reason  I  am  four  hundred  years  old! 
You  could  change  now — Traviata,  Giulietta,  Gilda — if 
you  would.  Wanda  de  1'Etoile  is  the  one  who  is  allowed 
to  do  anything — yes,  upon  the  very  rise  of  the  curtain,  if 
she  chose!" 

"And  upon  the  very  rise  of  the  curtain,  cheat  them — 
even  this  English  them,  who  took  Gibraltar?" 

"Anyway,  I  thank  God,"  he  cried,  and  threw  his  hands 
resignedly  in  air  with  a  long  Italian  groan  at  the  very 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         411 

memory  that  brought  him  comfort,  "you  at  least  are  not 
attacking  them,  as  you  threatened,  with  a  performance  of 
Isolde!" 

"Darling,  you  are  like  Gwendolean!"  she  cried.  "Be 
cheerful !  I  intend  doing  it  yet,  and  here  in  England  too, 
if — if — and  I  will  be  a  greater  Isolde  than  I  had  ever 
imagined,  for  I  find  out  I  am  very  Irish.  I  have  done 
suddenly  something  Irish  to  Gwendolean.  If  she  thinks 
her  husband  was  cruel,  will  you  believe  me,  darling,  let 
alone  the  name  Gwendolean,  I  have  gaven  her  my  slipper 
on  her  stomach!" 

He  looked  swiftly  at  her,  suspiciously. 

"With  intention?"  he  demanded. 

She  gazed  back  at  him  with  wide-eyed  innocence. 

"There  is  no  answer!  How  can  I  know?  Even  great 
scholars  dispute  it !" 

She  was  irresistible,  yet  he  stubbornly  resisted,  love's 
fear  driving  him. 

"Tosca  is  no  part  for  you  to-night!  It — it  is  no  part 
for  you  at  any  time !  Tinsel !  Rubbish !  Dish-water  and 
a  candlestick!" 

He  lied — but  he  was  a  father,  and  a  mother. 

She  gazed  at  him  blandly,  her  sunny  voice  shaded  with 
a  hairbreadth  of  seriousness. 

"It  was  a  part  for  Ternina.  It  was  a  part  for  Mary 
Garden.  Shall  I  mention  any  more  kinds  of  poetry?" 

He  broke  in  with  swift  viciousness. 

"It  is  a  part  for  the  lady  you  have  gaven  the  bird-seed, 
also !" 

Her  moment's  pensive  downward  look  was  ominous. 

"I  have  never  confessed  to  you  the  full  of  that  evil — 
nor  even  to  my  book.  There  was  one  further  dastardly 
action.  To  the  bird-seed  I  added  the  largess  of  a  cuttle- 
fish-bone ! — But  fortunately,  it  is  a  part  for  other  persons 
too,  despite  her  statesmanship.  Remember,  you  your- 
self sobbed  like  Gwendolean  at  that  Garden  party  in  the 
Comique  in  Paris.  You  let  me  sob,  too,  though  you  knew 
how  bad  that  was  for  me  in  those  days.  .  .  .  But  you 


412  The  Great  Way 

must  not  cry  now!  No,  no !  Consider,  darling,  we  have 
set  forth  against  England,  and  I  must  be  subtle — not 
cumbersome  like  the  Armada !  It  is  with  subtlety  I  am 
conquering  for  us !  You  see,  the  English  are  fond  of 
history,  and  despite  their  pretence  to  the  contrary,  they 
are  sentimental,  and  like  anniversaries  especially.  Now, 
this  is  the  fourteenth  of  June,  and  the  Battle  of  Marengo, 
while  poor  Floria  had  her  equal  hardships,  was  June  the 
thirteenth  and  fourteenth.  So  if  we  win  to-night  before 
midnight,  we  will  have  had  even  some  of  the  anniversary 
correct!  Remember  we  are  Napoleon's  forces — or  are 
we  the  Austrian — or  were  those  the  same?  I  am  not  as 
educated  as  I  thought!  But  anyway,  the  whole  thing  was 
a  Grand  Italian  Uproar,  and  so  will  our  version  be !  For 
instance,  that  is  a  nice  La  Scala  tenor  we  have  for  to- 
night. Did  you  notice  at  rehearsal?  In  the  Agony 
Scene,  he  screamed  like  Gwendolean  in  a  lemon-squeezer. 
Let  us  make  a  note  of  lemon-squeezer.  I  must  procure 
one  against  my  critics  to-morrow !" 

Though  he  had  known  his  cause  was  lost  before  he 
broached  it,  and  was  additionally  helpless  now  in  the 
springtide  torrent  of  her  mood,  yet  like  a  bulldog  and  a 
mule  and  Gwendolyn,  he  still  protested. 

"All  of  your  reasons  and  excuses  are  falsehoods!  You 
sing  it  only  because  you  want  to,  and  want  to  see  me  die 
once  more  of  heart-disease,  and  for  no  other  two  reasons ! 
You  are  not  Milka  Ternina.  You  are  not  Mary  Garden. 
You  are  not  Emma  Eames.  You  are  Wanda  de  1'Etoile. 
And  you  are  not  La  Tosca." 

"Not  for  nearly  fifteen  minutes  yet !"  she  said  blandly, 
and  he  groaned.  "And  then  .  .  .  !  Besides,  darling,  be 
thoughtful — there  is  one  more  reason.  One  of  the  at- 
tributes to  a  prima  donna  is  to  be  vainglorious,  a  word 
I  have  just  found  out  of  the  English  prayer-book,  and  in 
this  night's  gown  I  am  handsomer  than  in  any  other — 
even  Kundry's.  Can  you  believe  such  a  thing?  I  swear 
to  you  it  is  true,  darling !  It  is  a  dangerous  gown — I  fear 
to  have  you  see  us  together!  You  may  fall  in  love  with 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         413 

me.  And  if  you  do  not,  it  may  be  as  bad  another  way — 
I  may  likely  fly  into  a  rage  of  pique  and  fall  in  love  with 
you,  on  account  of  your  indifference!  Would  it  not  be 
dreadful,  darling,  if  you  and  my  gown  were  to  change  me 
out  of  my  career  into  a  vampire,  and  I  should  rush  about 
after  you,  as  late  as  nine  o'clock  at  night?  What  would 
be  the  fate  of  our  money,  if  I  were  not  in  my  dressing- 
room  at  eight  o'clock?  I  would  have  to  became  a  movies- 
actress  !  I  think  we  would  better  weep  about  it,  for  there 
are  great  dangers  in  my  having  selected  this  new  role  for 
to-night !" 

"There  is  a  great  danger  in  you,  to-night !"  he  cried, 
suddenly  taking  her  face  between  his  hands.  "It  is  this 
joyful  danger-point  that  always  so  frightens  me,  and 
never  has  it  been  quite,  never  quite,  as  it  is  this  moment  1 
You,  de  PEtoile,  could  never  fail,  no,"  and  he  pointed, 
with  long  shaking  finger,  upward:  "no  more  than  the 
stars  you  are  named  for.  But  you  might,  suddenly,  in 
one  of  these  grand  moods,  go  so  far  away!  Sing  Tosca 
and  Isolde  both  at  once  if  you  must,  for  you  could!  But 
consider  the  loneliness  for  me,  if,  one  of  these  over-keyed 
nights,  suddenly,  you  were  only  Wanda  de  1'Etoile,  and 
no  longer — my  own!" 

Her  eyes  as  she  gazed  up  at  him  had  grown  search- 
ing, rich  summer  succeeding  the  gay  May  in  them. 

"I  will  this  moment  reassure  you !  I  see,  ah,  I  see " 

and  swiftly  her  voice  grew  to  its  full  tenderness:  "you, 
like  me,  are  remembering  that  night  we  'remembered.' 
That  Nueva  York  night,  when  we  remembered  even — 

Cadiz !  Well "  She  went  swiftly  across  to  the  piano 

and  seated  herself,  and  it  was  with  now  a  wealth  of  pas- 
sionate earnestness  that  she  spoke  over  her  shoulder: 
"I  promise  you  that  after  to-night,  you  will  always 
remember — this  /" 

Again  her  fingers  preluded  "Vissi  d'Arte,  vissi 
d'Amore,"  but  now  it  was  in  full  voice  from  the  first  note 
onward  that  she  sang  it,  full,  clear,  an  outpouring,  filling, 
vibrating  the  room  as  she  had  done  the  room  in  the  Plaza 


414  The  Great  Way 

de  Loreto  that  first  day,  that  Cadiz  day — overflowing  the 
room  indeed,  so  that  just  without,  postured  dutifully  as 
a  figurehead,  Becket,  at  the  promising  plenitude,  in- 
stinctively, hopefully  counted:  "Sixty-one,  nine,  sixty- 
one,  one-hundred-and-thirty-eight,  sixty-two  stage- 
hands !"  She  had  not  meant  to  say  "Stage-hands."  That 
was  false,  false,  an  innocent  accident,  a  word  that  had 
slipped  forth  from  nervous  shock  because  again  upon  that 
Apocalyptically  numbered  note  the  voice  had  stopped  its 
song,  the  more  dreadfully  to  her  for  its  preceding  volume ; 
while  within,  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  as  if  the  rich  vocal  thing 
had  been  uplifting  more  than  in  its  rising  wave,  more  than 
in  its  spiritual  qualification,  had  sprung  up,  her  arms 
flung  passionately  forth  toward  him  who  had  been  suffer- 
ing so  very  differently  over  La  Tosca. 

"O-o-oh,  *Vissi  d'Arte,  vissi  d'Amore'!  What  words! 
'In  me,  look  you,  Art !  In  me,  look  you,  Love !'  And  you 
wonder,  yes,  you,  that  I  have  chosen  an  opera  for  the 
sake  of  words,  for  my  greatest  night,  for  England!  Even 
as  they  are  clawed  around  into  the  libretto,  think,  think 
of  them  as  to  me:  'For  Art  I  have  lived !  For  Love  I  have 
lived !'  How  wonderful,  as  I  think  it  in  English !  What  a 
tongue!  And  have  I  succeeded  to  reassure  you  with  it  in 
your  own  sweet  Italian?  Yes,  yes,  I  see  it  there  on  your 
nose  that  I  did,  and  if  you  still  doubt,  I  tell  you  I  am 
going  to  sing  to-night  as  I  have  never  sung  before,  and 
sing  it  as  it  has  never  been  sung  before !  That  second  is 
quite  natural,  as  I  have  never  sung  it,  and  I  am  something 
from  another  world  anyway!  But  besides  that,  I  am 

going  to  sing  to-night "  And  her  eyes  went  across 

to  the  little  desk:  "not  only  with  all  those  jewels  in  my 
voice,  summed  up,  just  as  in  my  Kundry  I  wore  them 
all,  but  with  all  of  those  treasures,  too !"  And  she 
pointed.  "Those,  my  little  red  book,  myself!  Are  you 
reassured?" 

It  was  indeed  patent  upon  his  nose  and  all  over  him 
that  he  was,  and  with  her  lifting  of  his  mood,  perfect 
as  the  uplift  of  that  melody,  her  own  springtime  had 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         415 

seized  him.  With  the  shot  of  his  eyes,  following  her 
pointing  finger,  to  the  desk,  and  their  spying  of  the  little 
red  volume  thereupon  open,  unguarded,  save  by  that 
innocuous  paper-cutter,  he  was  instantly  a  vivid  child 
not  only  at  a  party,  but  at  a  May-Day  party.  Two  great 
ejaculations,  two  great  accusing  gestures  fled  from  him. 

"A-ha!  A-ha!  Careless  in  your  happiness!  At  last 
I  can  read  every  word !" 

And  giddy  as  the  Fragonard  "Poursuite,"  they  rushed 
for  it  together — but  with  the  lady  flying  in  pursuit. 

"No,  no!"  she  cried  in  her  whirl  behind  him.  "It  is 
uninteresting !  I  swear  to  you,  it  is  a  cook-book !  When 
I  have  lost  my  voice,  I  am  going  to  be  a  cook !" 

He  had  secured  it.  She  stopped  his  hands  flutteringly, 
pleadingly. 

"No,  no !    You  would  not  enjoy  it  3    It  is  a  geography !" 

"You  said  it  was  a  cook-book !" 

She  was  lightning-like. 

"Both !  A  Cook's  Tour  book !  In  our  old  age  I  am 
going  to  be  a  guide  to  English  ladies !  Was  it  not  a 
beautiful  travelling  English  lady  I  first  promised  I  would 
write  it?  I  will  prove  it  to  you!  I  swear  to  you  I  will 
read  out  from  it  to  you!" 

And  he  let  her  have  it. 

"Yes,  just  listen:  the  very  first  day  we  have  came 
here  I  have  written  this:  ' London  is  not  as  wet  a$  it  is 
painted'!" 

"I  will  take  it  back  if  you  are  deceptive!  That  is 
not  all  you  wrote !" 

"It  is  a  guide  to  Grand  Uproar — listen:  'Should  a 
great  artist  who  prides  herself  upon  information  use  a 
Spanish  paper-cutter  from  Toledo,  steel  inlaid  with  gold, 
to  kill  a  French  baritone  in  an  Italian  uproar?'  ' 

Abruptly,  he  took  her  face  again  between  his  two 
hands. 

"You  have  left  off  two  words  from  that  question: 
my  own!"  And  as  she  laid  the  little  book  back  upon  the 
desk  with  a  little  catch  of  her  voice,  a  low.  dim  tone 


'416  The  Great  Way 

came  into  his.  "I  do  not  have  to  look  into  the  book  for 
that!  You  ask  him  all  your  questions!  Do  you  think 
I  would  have  read  one  word  in  it?  I  do  not  have  to! 
It  is  yourself,  your  soul,  in  there,  and  /  know  you,  and 
your  soul  like  a  book!  Yet  the  jealousy  of  parents  is  the 
most  ardent,  yes,  the  most  pitiable,  of  all  jealousies,  my 
own,  and  many  times,  I  could  have  killed  him  with  a 
Toledo  paper-cutter!" 

"Ah,"  she  cried,  the  voice  softly  golden,  the  reproach 
in  it  only  a  whisper  of  silver,  "can  you  say  so  after  that 
wonderful  Paris  day  when  we  found  the  name  for  the 
desert  I  was  in  ?  You,  who  helped  to  chide  me  out  of  that 
desert,  not  with  chiding  but  with  understanding  and 
with  beautiful  desire,  back  toward  him,  helped  me  by 
absolving  me  as  of  my  greatest  wrong,  though  throughout 
my  confessional  softening  my  harsh  chiding  of  myself? 
You,  you  of  all  the  world,  must  know,  do  know,  proved 
for  ever  that  exquisite  Paris  afternoon  as  if,  when  there 
was  not,  there  had  been  need  of  your  proving  that  you 
knew,  as  you  still  know,  why  I  am  able  to  sing  as  you 
would  have  me,  able  to  sing  a*  /  will  sing  to-night! 
You,  of  all,  must  understand  why  to-night  I  am  happy — 
so  happy  that  even  in  my  little  book  I  dared  to  say: 
'After  to-night,  my  debt  will  have  been  paid.  .  .  .  After 
to-night,  I  may  begin  to  dare  to  hope!'  ' 

"So  happy,"  he  exclaimed,  seizing  her  shoulders,  "that 
one  further  degree  of  it  now,  one  further  degree  of  it  in 
you  so  unused  to  it,  and  all  over  again  would  I  fear  for 
you " 

"All  over  again  will  you  be  Gwendolean?"  she  cried. 
"Fear  not  for  me,  when  you  know  I  have  only  one  fault 
in  my  character — too  lofty  a  passion  for  words,  as  with 
'Vissi  d'Arte' — and,  indeed,  I  confess,  with  'Vissi 
d'Amore* !  What  a  confession !  But  for  instance,  if  they 
must  persist  to  translate  all  grand  uproars  into  English 
words,  why  not  that  grand  one?"  She  pointed  to  the 
piano  and  spoke  its  grandiose  name  with  almost  pitying 
contempt:  "The  pianoforte — the  Soft-Loud!  Soft- 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         417 

Loud!"  And  breaking  from  him  she  ran  to  it  and  struck 
a  horrible  little  note  upon  it  treble,  with  mercilessly 
jigging  finger,  and  then  a  frightful  crash  upon  it  bass. 

His  hands  fled  to  his  ears. 

"My  own,  my  darling,  how  can  you  yourself  bear  it?" 

"To-night,"  she  cried  back  on  him  with  joyous  aban- 
don, "I  can  bear  anything!" 

He  captured  her  again  by  the  shoulders. 

"But  can  you?  Heed,  my  own,  what  I  said  of  those 
far-off  stars — it  is  but  a  chance  step  from  the  happy 
pinnacle  of  the  world  forth  into  their  spaces,  like  Tosca 
from  her  parapet !  I  will  be  confessional,  as  were  you 
in  Paris ;  I  have  a  great  genius's  peculiar  thoughts  and 
visions  of  what  he  has  made,  and  you,  my  own,  in  what 
we  have  together  made,  are  a  great  human  pyramid,  not 
a  cluster  of  diamonds,  though  you  can  at  will  sing 
diamonds ;  not  a  white  beautiful  statue  like  that  Victory 
there,  though  you  often  and  often  carve  beautiful  white 
statues  with  your  voice;  but  a  thing  able  to  be  those 
things,  yet  never  being  them,  being  always  a  great  thing 
as  human  as  the  great  crowds  you  sing  for!  Of  all  the 
things  I  adore  in  you,  that  is  what  I  most  adore.  And 
yet  I  know  the  very  delicateness  of  your  very  greatness. 
That  is  why  I  tremble  at  your  lovely  abandon  to  happi- 
ness, I  who  should  enrapture  at  it,  this  your  great  London 
night.  One  more  small  reason  for  that  happiness,  and 
all  over  would  I  fear,  yes,  even  after  your  singing  to 
me  of  that  'Vissi  d'Arte,  vissi  d'Amore' !  Forgive  me 
my  repetition  of  fear — I  will  desist  almost  momentarily. 
It  is  that  one  of  these  nights,  these  moments,  by  your 
excessive  use  of  your  whole  self  you  will  be  suddenly  not 
you.  Not  my  own,  but  a  star,  a  shower  of  diamonds,  a 
white  statue — yes,"  and  his  voice  broke,  "the  'Vissi 
d'Arte,'  without  the  'Vissi  d'Amore'!" 

The  wealth  of  the  imaginative  picture,  the  poverty  of 
that  breaking  voice,  filled  her  own  words  to  overflow  with 
earnestness,  yet  pushed  from  them  no  drop  of  her  rich 
faith,  gay  serenity. 


418  The  Great  Way 

"But  this  night,  you  know  that  I  will,  that  I  must  be 
all  of  those  things,  and  Wanda  de  1'Etoile,  your  Wanda 
de  1'Etoile,  too !  Father-ond-mother,  let  me  sing  to-night 
as  I  choose,  and  from  mafiana  I  promise  you  I  will  for 
evermore  be  full  of  ee-ee-easiness!  I  will  cook  everything 
in  my  book,  and  sing  the  way  they  do  in  Italy !  Listen !" 

And  with  a  swoop  down  upon  her  of  her  Fragonard 
temptation,  she  broke  into  the  breathless  phrases  of  the 
"Rigoletto"  quartette,  a  very  vision  of  a  fat  woman — 
fat,  gasping — fat  as  the  diva  in  the  Cadiz  street. 

"Ah !"  he  exclaimed,  hands  in  air,  helplessly  capti- 
vated by  her.  "Sing  for  him  to-night,  then,  as  you 
choose !" 

One  battle  of  Marengo  was  over;  her  arms  went  about 
him  gratefully. 

"And  let  me  tell  you,"  he  said,  tenderly,  gravely,  his 
relinquishment  complete  and  he  his  selfless  self  again, 
"with  my  same  genius's  thoughts  that  have  kept  me  awake 
on  your  account  last  night,  I  had  quite  suddenly  another 
one — so  simple  a  thought ;  and  why,  my  darling,  have  you 
never  had  it?  The  telephone  book.  For  I  think  no  other 
English  gentleman  would  be  christened  such  a  name.  And, 
my  own,  in  all  the  millions  of  time  you  have  been  spending 
writing  these  little  red  books,  I  am  sure  you  could  have 
read  the  whole  London  telephone  book,  every  word  of  it !" 

She  shook  her  head  wistfully. 

"You  think  I  have  never  thought  of  it?  But — that 
would  not  be  the  way;  not  the  Great  way!  It  must  be 
God's  choosing,  just  as  it  was  when  we  knew — well,  what 
we  learned  that  sunlit  day  on  the  Venice  canal.  Do  you 
remember — tliat?  .  .  .  And  that  sobbing  that  we  have 
spoken  of  stopped.  .  .  .  And  how  happy,  lovingly  happy, 
you  were  for  us  both,  as  I  was,  selfishly,  for  myself !  Do 
you  remember?  And  how  Venice,  ever  thereafter,  was  only 
another  beautiful  word  for  sunlight!  Thus  it  must  be, 
darling,  for  England.  England !  Still  another  word  for 
sunlight — violets  and  sunlight — Isabel  and  sunlight — my 
beautiful  sunlit  Isabel,  who  I  hope  wears  around  her  lovely 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         419 

throat  that  one — one  other  part  of  me,  the  treasure-part 
that  has  only  been  gaven  and  taken,  that  has  never  been 
bought  or  sold !" 

Tenderly,  hesitant  with  tenderness,  he  said: 

"Perhaps — yes,  very  perhaps — she  will  be  in  this 
audience  to-night!" 

"Sunlight  at  night?"  And  she  trembled  a  little.  "No, 
no !  I  must  not  ask  for  miracles !  Not  such  miracles  as 
that!  No,  I  think  not,  for  the  Great  Way  is  not  quite 
like  that  either,  I  imagine.  I — I  have  desired  it  too 
passionately.  So  I  do  not  expect  it !" 

From  behind  the  Fragonards,  Becket  entered,  in  quite 
splendid  condition,  because  she  had  work  to  do,  for  which 
she  lived,  instead  of  Art  and  Love — as  stiff  as  a  marionette 
and  as  correct  in  her  part,  moving  gingerly  forward  as 
if  there  were  grooves  in  the  floor,  and  someone  had  puffed 
her  from  behind  as  someone  opposite  pulled  her  with  a 
string ;  and  carrying  a  package.  She  came  to  a  wavering 
but  successful  standstill  before  the  personage  de  1'Etoile. 

"Your  second  call,  madam,  and  here  is  another 
bundle." 

It  was  obviously  of  flowers,  and  Madame's  gesture 
waved  it  luxuriously  toward  the  Maestro. 

"I  have  plenty — give  them  to  him !" 

The  marionette  did  excellently  a  hands-up  motion  of 
shock,  although  dropped  not  the  bundle. 

"Unopened,  madam?" 

"Unopened,  Gwendolean!  We  have  enough  for  our 
funeral,  lady's-maid,  mine  and  yours.  All  the  stage- 
hands and  scene-shifters  will  be  there,  on  your  side;  and 
that  same  King  and  Queen,  over  here,  on  mine !" 

Becket  nearly  wept  again,  but  saved  herself  with  a 
desperate  cry  of  duty. 

"It  is  your  second  call,  madam!" 

"True,  my  own,"  said  the  Maestro,  warningly.  "But 
you  have  time  to  look  at  these !  Did  you  send  them 
yourself,  that  you  are  so  disinterested?" 

"No,"  said  Madame,  "but  I  can  look  right  through  the 


420  The  Great  Way 

box.  There  have  been  seated  at  that  dinner-party  last 
night  several  young  English  penguins  who  did  not  disdain 
me  despite  I  said  Holy  God  about  the  pudding.  That 
box  is  full  of  o-r-c-h-i-d-s,  an  English  word  pronounced 
meadow,  and  if  you  do  not  prize  it,  give  it  to  my  gentle- 
woman, Gwendolean. — Gwendolean,  there  are  some  flowers, 
from  a  young  gentleman,  for  you !" 

"Then  I  shall  unwrap  them  to  show  you.  Yes,"  he 
cried  at  her  threat  to  turn  away,  "for  it  is  not  you  to  be 
unkind  to  anybody!" 

She  turned  back  perforce  at  that. 

"Ah ! — But  I  warn  you  now  forevermore  beforehand, 
there  will  be  a  card  in  it :  E-n-r-o-u-g-h-t-x-y,  pronounced 
Sinjun;  or  else  C-1-e-r-k,  Darby!" 

"They  are  violets,"  said  the  Maestro. 

"Violets!"  And  for  that  one  word  her  teasing  voice 
was  altered.  "Then  I  will  keep  this  young  man  myself, 
Gwendolean,  and  later,  according  as  you  are  good  or 
naughty  (Naughty!),  I  will  give  you  some  even  more 
English  flowers — some  Day's  eyes,  or  Pan's  eyes.  No, 
English  is  such  a  wonderful  language,  I  think  Gwen- 
dolean's  flower  would  be  Sheep's  eyes.  Yes,  I  will  give 
you  some  sheepsies,  Gwendolean  !" 

"And,"  broke  in  the  Maestro  triumphantly,  "no  more 
were  they  orchids,  then  no  more  is  there  a  card,  either! 
It  is  a  letter !" 

Incorrigible,  she  waved  it  off  as  she  had  done  the  box: 
"I  know  every  word  of  it !" 

He  read  aloud,  forcing  her  to  listen!  "  'Do  you 
remember ' 

"Ah!"  she  cried  interrupting.  "Famous  words  of 
yours  and  mine,  my  dear,  but  in  this  case?  Yes,  I  re- 
member! He  took  too  many  c-a-m-p-a-i-g-n,  pronounced 
— potatoes!" 

Again  he  read,  insistently.  "  'Do  you  remember 
Isabel?'  " 

There  was  a  lightning-instant's  silence  in  the  room, 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         421 

then  there  came  from  Madame  de  1'Etoile  a  great,  swift, 
spontaneous  cry.  And  her  hands  lifted. 

"Oh,  and  I  have  just  said  the  Great  Way  is  not  like 
that !  Oh,  when  I  lack  Faith,  Faith  is  poured  down  upon 
me!"  She  rushed  to  him,  reaching.  "Yes,  yes,  you  shall 
not  brutalize  me  with  it  as  you  did  about  my  book !" 

"You  gave  it  to  me,  it  is  mine !" 

"Yes,"  she  cried,  "yours,  because  Isabel  is  part  of 
me!" 

At  the  intriguing  sweetness  of  it  he  relinquished  the 
fluttering  paper;  she  kissed  it  swiftly,  ardently;  started 
to  read  it ;  and  found  that  she  could  not,  for  tears. 

•'After  all,  darling,  you  will  have  to  read  it  to  me !" 

And  with  her  face  hidden  against  him,  the  Maestro  read. 

"  'Do  you  remember  Isabel  ?  From  your  pictures  I  think 
that  I  have  found  my  dearest  friend,  among  the  stars.  // 
you  do  remember  Isabel — and  violets — send  one  word  now 
that  you  will  see  me  after  the  performance.  It  will  make  one 
of  the  happiest  moments  of  my  life,  for  I  want  you  to  see 
that  life  has  to  me,  also,  been  very  kind;  I  want  you  to  meet 
my  husband.' " 

"Oh,"  her  voice  trembled  up  to  him  as  he  gazed  down 
into  her  lifted  eyes,  upon  the  exquisite,  upturned  tremu- 
lous-lipped face,  "oh — tears!  It  is  so  long,  so  long  since 
I  have  cried !  Oh,  darling,  darling,  this  is  an  omen,  the 
only  one  that  I  truly  believe  in,  an  omen  of  the  whole 
Great  Way!  From  this  moment  I  will  never  doubt  the 
final  end! — Gwendolean,  go  instantly — no,  there  is  not 
time!  I  have  delayed  us,  and  you  must  dress  me  in  a 
whirl-whined! — Go  you,  darling,  and  bring  me  back  the 
English  from  whom  I  ran  away  for  you !  Bring  them 
yourself  right  to  my  door,  and  you,  darling,  see  me — 
at  the  close !  Do  it,  do  it,  for  I  can  promise  you  now, 
promise  even  as  I  could  not  those  minutes  ago,  that  this 
night  I  will  sing  Floria  Tosca  as  I  have  never  sung  before, 
and  that  I  will  sing  Floria  Tosca  as  it  has  never  been 
sung  before !" 


422  The  Great  Way 

And  in  silence,  the  complete  silence  of  utter  sympathy 
and  unutterable  understanding,  he  went.  Only  he  stopped 
for  one  long,  quaffing  look  at  the  beauty  of  her  from  the 
Fragonard  screen;  and  at  the  profound  love  of  that  look 
she  called  to  him: 

"Fear  not — nothing,  nothing,  can  injure  your  own  or 
her  destiny  now !" 

Then  with  his  vanishment  she  turned  swiftly  to  Becket 

"Come,  we  are  in  a  very  Latin  hurry !" 

"I  do  not  know  Latin,  madam !"  cried  Becket  in  terro^ 
deep  terror,  yet  she  was  again  the  aviatrix,  the  guinea- 
Victory,  the  engineer  electrical,  speeding  beside  her  regal 
employer  to  the  Watteau  nook,  swirling  into  it  with  her. 

"Yes,  yes,  in  motion  you  are  wonderful,  Gwendolean, 
and  I  assure  you  I  am  not  nervous !  There — cha-a-arming, 
Gwendolean!  As  for  Latin  hurry,  if  anything  should 
really  go  wrong  at  the  last  call,  you  would  have  to  run 
after  me,  for  example,  and  hurl  my  hat  on  to  me  from 
God  knows  how  far  in  the  rear,  for  I  never  undertake  it 
till  that  fearful  instant.  .  .  .  Any  such  hat  as  this.  .  .  . 
Thank  you,  Gwendolean.  .  .  .  Excellent.  ...  I  know 
what  I  shall  do  for  you — out  of  all  my  English  flowers, 
besides  the  sheep's-eyes  I  will  give  you  some  cow's-lips, 
Gwendolean !  As  you  do  not  know  Latin,  it  is  fortunate 
I  studied  English  like  everything !  As  an  instance,  speak- 
ing of  all  these  vegetables,  if  you  should  bounce  that  hat 
off  my  bean  like  Gadski's  wig  one  night,  you  would  be 
avenged  in  full  for  that  slipper,  but  the  uproar  would  be 
the  wrong  one !  Ah,  quick — those  violets  !"  For  from 
across  from  them  she  had  heard  the  Maestro's  voice  in  a 
gentle  murmur  to  her  guests.  "And  then  go  fetch  my 
friends  in!" 

They  re-emerged,  and  still  was  Becket  masterly,  seem- 
ing to  pluck  the  violets  out  of  the  air  with  one  hand  while 
she  closed  away  the  tiny  boudoir  with  a  deft  slap  of  the 
other  upon  its  screen,  and  with  the  same  action,  as  if  she 
had  been  a  great  painter  or  at  least  his  instrument,  back- 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         423 

grounded,  with  its  sprightly  guarding  group  of  Watteaus, 
the  moment's  ravishing  portrait  of  Wanda  de  1'Etoile. 

For  though  with  the  rapidity  and  precision  of  a  com- 
bined harvester  and  groceryman  unsheathing  and  then 
parcelling  an  ear  of  corn  they  had  left  the  woman  of 
classical  drapery  behind,  she  had  not  become  Floria  Tosca 
quite  as  yet. 

Staff,  hat  and  the  famous  flowers  awaited  their  destined 
seconds  still.  Only  the  gown  thus  far  hinted  her — a 
simple  thing,  but  extravagantly  simple,  of  sheer,  solid, 
glittering,  unrelieved  silver  from  the  snow-coloured  shoul- 
ders to  its  path  on  the  floor,  a  thing  subtle  in  its  prodigal 
daring,  too,  with  its  lines  pushing  the  imagination  con- 
fusingly  to  both  the  Empire  and  the  Directorate.  No 
colour  touched  her  or  that  silver,  save  that  vivid  carmine 
of  the  lips,  and,  in  the  instant  later,  the  royal  purple  stain 
of  the  violets  upon  the  gown  as  Becket  planted  them  in 
her.  And  it  was  Becket  had  the  tall  staff.  Whether  she 
had  had  it  in  her  mouth,  or  lured  it  to  her  straight 
through  the  screen  with  something  for  itself  to  eat,  could 
not  be  known.  But  have  it  she  did,  and  in  her  flight  across 
the  room  at  Madame's  order  to  fetch  in  the  guests,  she 
managed  to  stand  it,  firm  as  the  column  of  ivory  that  it 
seemed  to  be,  in  readiness  beside  the  desk. 

"Wait!" 

Madame  de  1'Etoile  had  cried  it  suddenly,  as  she  stood 
expectant,  almost  frightened  at  her  impending  joy,  her 
starry  eyes  fastened  on  the  Fragonard  screen  ready  to 
drink  its  coming  vision  of  sunlight  and  starlight. 

"Take  the  violets  till  I  motion  for  them  again. — • 
Now !" 

She  glanced  her  again  to  the  doorway,  went 
tremblingly,  joyously  to  the  desk,  sat,  and  hastily, 
quiveringly  wrote. 

My  own,  my  own,  I  now  know,  yes,  as  only  Faith  complete 
knows  how  to  know,  that  you  are  coming  back  to  me.  For 


424  The  Great  Way 

oh,  my  own,  Isabel,  my  Isabel,  this  night,  this  moment  has 
came  back! 

She  put  the  little  red  book  tremulously,  with  poignant, 
lingering  finality,  home  upon  its  shelf  in  its  case;  and  as 
Becket  with  resplendent  propriety  fetched  in  her  visitors 
she  was  seated  there  with  her  eyes  flutteringly  closed, 
an  exquisite  glittering  jewel  pendant  under  each  of  them, 
the  shaking  hand  drawing  back  from  the  little  book  to 
press  tight  against  her  heart.  She  knew  that  Isabel  was 
before  her,  near  her,  gazing  at  her ;  knew,  with  her  highly 
sensitized  intuition  that  her  silence,  the  closed  eyes,  her 
seated  posture  might  have,  in  her  magnificently  altered 
worldly  circumstances,  for  the  moment  almost  any  strange 
interpretation  for  the  lovely  girl;  but  in  this  instant  of 
instants  she  was  allowing  herself  every  qualitative  vibra- 
tion of  soul-renewing,  vivid  living. 

Isabel  indeed  was  gazing,  gazing  as  the  Maestro  had 
gazed,  and  more — herself  ineffably  lovely  in  a  soft  mist- 
tinted  evening-frock,  without  further  colour  save  for  a 
string  of  strange  blue-green  beads  drooping  over  her  white 
bosom,  she  was  gazing  as,  on  that  first  day  in  Cadiz,  she 
had  been  gazed  at — as  if  this  vision  of  sheer  silver  and  of 
closed,  silver- jewelled  eyes  were  a  glimpse  of  heaven. 

And  still  were  those  eyes  closed,  though  the  two  jewels 
trembled  away  from  them,  as  Madame  de  1'Etoile  spoke 
her  first  words  to  her  friend : 

"I  told  you,  that  day,  I  would  sometime  make  myself 
into  a  valuable  little  red  book!" 

She  rose,  and  with  outstretched  arm  received  the 
precious  violets  again  from  Becket,  and  swept  them 
delicately  against  her  heart. 

"Before  I  even  looked  at  you,  I  had  to  finish  it !" 

With  the  last  words  she  at  last  met  Isabel's  eyes,  stood 
motionless,  superb,  suddenly  poised  in  the  happiness  of 
her  great  moment,  then  went  toward  her,  longing,  first 
intending,  to  take  her  heart's  friend  in  her  arms,  but 
helplessly  prevented  by  the  wealth  of  lovingly  held  flowers. 


The  Night  and  the  Nightingale         425 

"Oh,"  cried  Isabel,  joyously,  almost  excitedly,  and  her 
own  hand  holding  back  with  difficulty  from  the  lovely 
outreached  one,  "oh,  and  before  one  real  word,  before  we 
reaUy  meet  again,  you  must  be  satisfied  about  my  life,  as 
I  am  about  yours — you  must  meet  my  husband !" 

It  swept  back  the  happy  nightingale's  mind  to  re- 
membrance of  another,  a  negligible  but  a  courtesy-de- 
manding presence  there,  swept  her  reaching  hand  toward 
the  man  standing  at  her  Isabel's  side,  and  bringing  a  new 
smile  of  friendly  welcome  to  her  lips,  she  looked  at  him. 
For  an  instant  her  brain,  her  faculties,  her  instincts  de- 
serted her — stopped,  as  if  her  heart  had  stopped.  It  was 
Jose  Luis. 


CHAPTER  XXXVIII 

vissi  D'ARTE 

FOR  an  instant;  one  in  whose  tidal  rushing  flow  and 
torrential  resurge  time,  place  and  feeling  were  a  helpless, 
hopeless  intertwist  of  things — uncontrollable;  and  upon 
which  instinct,  last  to  desert  her  and  first  to  return,  had 
swept  wide  her  arm  to  keep  its  proffered  hand  from  meet- 
ing his — a  great,  back-flung  gesture  of  shocked  horror. 

And  with  the  very  disaster  of  its  crashing,  graphic 
outcry  of  her  soul  made  naked,  brain  and  faculties  leapt 
after  instinct  back  to  her,  directed  her  hand  to  a  straw 
to  grasp,  a  straw  with  which  to  beat  that  spiritual  naked- 
ness into  another  mould;  for  the  fingers  had  touched  the 
Tosca  staff,  and  the  current  of  the  physical  and  mental 
supporting  stamina  of  it  coursed  through  her  spirit  and 
body,  wiped  the  fleet  torture  from  her  features  and  carved 
them  in  marble. 

The  splendid  brain  functioning  with  all  the  precision 
and  vast  dispassion  of  a  clock,  she  brought  her  eyes 
very  casually  away  from  his  face  toward  her  arm,  brought 
the  beautiful  imposing  staff  of  ebony  and  ivory  and 
tasselled  silver  cords  deliberately  forward  and  planted  it 
between  them,  her  arm  magnificently  postured  with  it,  and 
met  his  eyes  again  deliberately,  and  with  a  deliberate 
greeting. 

"How  yo  doo  doo?" 

She  never  knew  whether  he  made  an  articulate  answer; 
she  knew  only  that  brain  and  capacities  had  carried  her 
superbly  far,  only  to  leave  her  ironically  deficient,  for 
her  English  had  for  a  lightning-flash  of  time  fallen  miles, 
years,  away  from  her,  and  her  frigidly  formal  saluta- 

426 


Vissi  d'Arte  427 

tion  to  him  now  had  been,  with  all  their  completely  foreign 
accent  and  mistake  of  order,  her  fatal  first  words  to  him 
in  the  Rambla  of  the  Flowers.  This,  in  itself,  was  well, 
not  ill — helped  the  dimensions  of  the  gulf  of  ice  she  was 
creating,  the  unbridgable  distance  between  herself  and 
these  two  English  people.  But  she  knew  also,  and  knew 
it  desperately,  as  she  heard  her  own  strange-sounding 
voice,  that  the  remainder  of  that  speech,  dynamic,  preg- 
nant with  catastrophe,  was  literally  upon  her  lips,  articu- 
lation inevitable,  too  imminent  to  hold  back,  and  it  was 
with  a  cruelly  hurtful  tightening  of  her  fingers  on  the 
staff,  a  further  subtle  digging  of  it  into  the  flower-strewn 
carpet,  that  the  leap  of  her  intellect  wrenched  the  words 
as  they  left  her  into  creation  not  destruction.  With 
electric-swift  thought  she  sent  them,  along  with  a 
languid,  smiling  droop  of  eyes,  to  Isabel: 

"Fleece  to  say  yo  'gain !" 

And  poised,  vigorously  steadied  by  the  success,  the 
very  sound,  of  all  the  debonair  brutality  of  their  diverted 
application,  she  could  have  held  back  the  one  remaining 
phrase,  and  intentionally  did  not ;  intentionally  used  it, 
perfectly  as  she  would  have  used  a  chance-to-hand  colour 
for  a  phrase  of  music: 

"Preety  efening,  no?" 

She  knew  that  Isabel  was  replying — words  that  made 
a  pitiful  bell-like  sound  of  mingled  eagerness  and  wonder- 
ing confusion;  but  the  words  did  not  matter.  The  two 
— the  pair — would  be  gone  in  a  very  few  seconds,  gone 
for  ever  and  for  ever,  if  she  could  hold  before  them 
through  such  a  little  space  her  spiritual  posture  as  she  was 
holding  her  body  and  that  planted  staff.  And  for  fortifi- 
cation in  it,  she  allowed  herself  an  instant's  complete 
possession  by  this  night's,  this  moment's  fact,  its  pain 
too  hideous  to  be  felt  as  yet,  but  clear  to  her  vision  in 
all  its  significance  as  a  gargoyle  against  the  noonday 
sun ;  and  to  her  madly  reacting  mind  the  grotesque  body 
of  that  monster  was  the  suddenly  visible  minute  economy 
with  which  God  had  reserved  her,  in  an  intricately  fes- 


428  The  Great  Way 

tooned  and  warding  fool's  paradise,  pristine  for  this 
moment  of  the  corner-butcher's  knife :  a  paradise  of  blind- 
ness from  a  thousand  small  chances  of  circumstance. 
Chance  one,  her  silly  intuitive  fear  of  Society  itself  that 
had  made  her,  from  some  sheer  God-suggested  sense  of 
sheer  decency,  look  away  from  that  carriage  in  the  Rambla 
instead  of  staring  at  it  as  she  first  intended  to  do  and 
should  have  done;  and  of  still  smaller  chances,  hundreds, 
hundreds — chances  of  talk,  and  worse — of  delicious, 
whimsical  reticences  through  that  Cadiz  week,  the  very 
star-dust  of  Fate  thrown  in  her  eyes  to  keep  her  as  blind 
as  the  exquisitely  innocent  English  girl ;  blindness  for 
herself  the  more  complete  because  her  eyes  had  been  so 
wide  open  in  their  recklessness  of  Faith — eyes  that  had 
looked  right  up  from  the  starving  cobbles  and  deliberately 
bargained  for  this  with  God:  "If  only  now  when  I  need 
it  so  ...  and  no  matter  what  it  might  be  ...  no  mat- 
ter what  terrible  pain  it  might  bring  afterwards,  if  You 
chose.  .  .  ."! 

And  such,  then,  was  the  body  of  the  monster;  but 
bodies  are  only  instruments,  and  this  grinning  thing  had 
a  soul,  and  that  gargoyle  soul  staring  out  of  its  basilisk 
eyes  at  her  was  the  picture,  straight  here  before  her,  of 
his  being  here  thus — willing  to  be  there,  willing  to  meet 
her,  willing  to  meet  her  with  his  wife,  whose  maid  and 
whose  soul  companion,  essence-of-spirit  comrade,  she  had 
been;  willing  to  meet  her  knowing  what  he  knew,  and  as 
he  thus  necessarily  would  show  himself  to  be :  a  cad,  and  a 
cad  with  the  final  touch  of  God's  smiling  finger  on  his 
lapel — the  touch  of  a  gardenia. 

A  moment  of  facing  a  gargoyle  in  excelsis,  the  first 
torturing  twist  of  whose  horn  in  her  had  been  the  need 
to  efface,  instantaneously,  the  effect  of  that  fatal  moment 
which,  brief  but  illuminating  as  a  forked  lightning-streak, 
must,  while  it  paralysed,  have  nakedly  displayed  her. 

That  first  twist,  she  had  magnificently  met,  for  the 
girl  was  disarmed — her  bewildered,  hurt,  pitiable  words, 
as  she  struggled  bravely  for  right  ones,  were  saying  so. 


Fissi  d'Arte  429 

"My — my  note  told  you  this  would  be  one  of  the  hap- 
piest moments  of  my  life !" 

Madame  de  1'Etoile  slightly  bowed. 

"I,  too,  am  very  happy,  very  happy !" 

"We  are — are  stopping  in  town,  at  the  Savoy."  The 
doubtful  little  waver  had  despite  her  valiant  sweetness 
come  uppermost  in  Isabel's  voice,  and  her  husband's  took 
up  its  difficult  burden  for  her. 

"You  will  have  supper  with  us  there  after  the  per- 
formance ?" 

"Thanks,  monsieur,"  said  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  "I  have 
supper  always  alone.  In  a  life  like  mine  it  has  certain 
advantages  to  be  always  alone." 

"Madame  will  immensely  disappoint  my  wife !"  he  ex- 
claimed. "Make  me  the  favour  to  break  a  rule  for  my 
wife's  sake !" 

She  looked  briefly  into  his  eyes. 

"I  used  to  break  rules,  and  found  it  did  not — pay!" 
And  she  turned  back  to  Isabel.  "You  have  been  very 
kind !" 

With  her  rejoinder  almost  a  little  gasp  escaped  the 
beautiful  English  girl. 

"Au  revoir!"  she  breathed. 

Madame  de  1'Etoile  bowed  to  them  both. 

"Good-bye !" 

As  Becket  with  promptly  renewed  decorum  fetched 
the  two  back  whence  she  had  brought  them  and  formally 
vanished  with  them  behind  the  Fragonard  screen,  Madame 
de  1'Etoile  stood  unmoving;  the  staff  still  planted  un- 
wavering in  the  carpet  as  if  it  were  a  rod  propping  the 
outstretched  arm  of  a  statue,  even  her  eyes  motionless, 
fastened  on  the  screen  as  if  they  penetrated  it,  looked 
through  it  and  out  through  the  doorway  to  the  vast  stage 
where  momentarily  she  must  follow  them,  follow  to  sing; 
motionless  completely,  until  Becket  reappeared  with  a 
rush  and  a  gasp : 

"Your  last  call,  madam — I  could  see  the  boy  coming  !'* 

And  then  her  one  movement  was  a  swift,  abrupt  motion 


430  The  Great  Way 

of  her  left  arm,  which  lifted  and  dropped  the  violets  as  if 
she  hated  them.  Becket  seized  them  up,  sped  behind  the 
Watteau  screen,  dropped  them  on  the  dressing-table  there 
and  fled  back  with  the  huge  pink-feathered  Tosca  hat; 
and  again  the  left  arm  of  the  statue  moved — helping  her 
to  place  it,  arranging  the  great  looping  ribbons  under  the 
chin,  falling  to  position  rigidly  again.  And  then  Becket 
sprang  to  the  piano  and  waited  at  attention  for  the  com- 
mand for  flowers — astute,  stirred  to  alertest  capability 
in  this  her  own  hardest  moment  by  an  electricity  in  the 
air  that  moved  her  and  that  she  did  not  understand — a 
thing  that  came  from  a  smile  in  the  beautiful  room,  a 
smile  that  was  not  upon  her  mistress's  face,  but  that  that 
face  was  gazing  at,  the  sardonic  grin  that  was  emanating 
from  a  monster  and  that  had  spread  itself  all  over  the 
Opera,  heart  of  the  world ;  over  all  England ;  over  the 
world  itself;  over  the  whole  Great  Way;  over  the  Gran 
Via  of  the  Universe,  from  star  to  star  .  .  .  the  smile  of 
a  gargoyle  which  the  face  gazing  at  it,  in  order  to  give  it 
the  power  thus  to  smile,  had  taken  from,  and  itself  put  on, 
its  unmoving  nature  of  stone. 

Then  the  eyes  moved,  for  one  long  instant,  to  the 
piano,  and  the  right  arm  moved,  lifting  the  staff  and 
terribly  gesturing  with  it  in  one  sharp,  straight  motion 
three  times  repeated,  toward  four  great  masses  of  flowers, 
the  dart  of  the  tall  beautiful  stick  writing  in  the  air  as 
vividly  as  if  it  had  articulated  "Those!  Those!  Those! 
Those!"  Then  the  staff  went  back  to  the  same  yellow 
primrose  it  had  crushed  into  the  carpet,  the  eyes  to  that 
centre  of  stony  space  before  her.  Ancient  Greece  and 
Ancient  Rome  painted  their  statues,  and  for  a  handful 
of  flashing  seconds  it  was  as  if  Becket  were  a  Greek  or 
Roman  artisan  further  painting  this  one  of  silver  and 
ivory,  its  touch  of  ebony,  its  great  hat  of  varied  pinks 
and  its  dash  of  bright  rouge  upon  its  marble,  as  she 
weighted  the  violet-emptied  arm  with  a  mass  of  brilliant 
orange-coloured  marigolds,  a  huge  cluster  of  light  blue 


Fissi  d'Arte  431 

pansies,  a  wealth  of  pink  roses  dripping  with  streamers 
of  silver  lace,  and  a  sheaf  of  royal-purple  hyacinths  based 
with  poignant  deep  magenta  peonies.  Then  done  with  her 
rich  portrait  Becket  sped  to  and  hurled  aside  the  Frago- 
nard  screen,  flung  wide  the  doorway  to  the  stage;  and 
through  this  came  the  distant  sounds  of  the  orchestra,  the 
near  sound  of  a  voice — the  call-boy's. 

"Madame  de  I'Etotte!  Madame  de  VEtoile!" 
For  one  instant  still  the  statue  of  silver  and  vivid 
colours  with  its  fixed  eyes  stood  on  unmoving.  Then  once 
more  the  staff  lifted,  and  Madame  de  1'Etoile  swept  for- 
ward to  sing  as  she  had  never  sung  before,  and  to  sing 
Floria  Tosca  as  Floria  Tosca  had  never  been  sung  before. 


CHAPTER  XXXIX 

THE  SWING  OF  THE   PENDULUM 

BECKET  was  re-carven  on  a  carven  chair — a  piteous 
figure,  now,  of  grief — and  of  its  worse  friend,  terror.  And 
she  was  the  rightly  concentric  symbol  of  a  scene  of  rich 
desolation — suggested  only,  but  as  if  suggested  by 
pattern,  for  each  quarter  of  the  beautiful  room  held  a 
high-coloured  mark :  its  four  corners  owning  now  the  four 
chosen  bouquets,  bouquets  no  longer,  accurately  pitched 
to  the  four  walls  against  which  they  lay,  lacerated  mari- 
golds, battered  pansies,  scattered  roses,  bruised  and  wilt- 
ing hyacinths.  And  act  two  had  also  brought  its  scars 
in  here,  like  tributes  on  a  sacrificial  altar,  for  a  rare  Greek 
gown  of  white  and  gold  drooped  like  the  flowers  against 
Becket's  chair,  slashed  to  ribbons  by  the  Toledo  paper- 
cutter,  which  lay  on  the  hem  of  it,  telling  its  tale  that 
Scarpia's  imitation  blood  had  not  been  enough  for  the 
thirst  of  it.  Evidently  too  Becket  had  been  forbidden  to 
touch  it — or  the  gown,  whose  furious  wounds  cried  out  for 
decent  hiding;  because  as  she  leaned  forward,  and  gingerly 
picked  up  from  the  carpet,  just  before  her,  Floria's  golden 
laurel  wreath  to  see  if  that  was  injured  too,  it  was  with  a 
cautious  ear  to  the  sounds  of  distant  orchestra  and  voices 
filtered  into  the  silence  here.  And  when,  while  she  did  it, 
the  treacherous  Scarpia  shots  on  the  parapet  rang  out, 
and  shot  Becket  to  the  soul  with  nervous  terror,  even  so 
she  was  not  so  unwary  after  the  night  that  she  had  already 
spent  as  to  regain  her  ordered  posture  on  her  chair- 
pedestal  until  she  had  exactly  replaced  the  circlet  of 
golden  leaves  on  the  floor,  calculating  anxiously  from  the 
yellow  primroses. 

432 


The  Swing  of  the  Pendulum  433 

Scarcely  was  her  taut  body  back  where  it  belonged, 
when  it  shivered,  shivered  all  over,  for  rehearsal  had 
taught  her  the  main  arithmetic  of  this  opera,  at  the 
Tosca's  voice  in  its  last  poignant,  clarion  note — diluted 
in  reaching  her,  yet  terrible  even  here,  vibrant,  agonized 
and  agonizing  as  Floria  leapt  from  the  parapet  greeting 
death  with  her  final  soul-cry  of  passionate  demand  for 
justice,  justice  "Before  God's  throne!" 

Scarcely,  too,  was  there  interim  between  that  cry  and 
its  consequence  for  Becket.  Long  since,  though  the 
"bonair"  of  it  still  glowed  the  place  the  Fragonard 
screen  had  been  set  back  away  from  the  door.  It  would 
have  suffered  if  it  had  not  been,  as  Becket  had  learned 
two  hours  ago,  at  the  end  of  Act  One.  It  was  then  also 
she  had  learned  that  the  swirl  of  Tosca  into  the  place 
was  instant  upon  the  curtain  fall — that  her  creator  was 
taking  no  curtain-calls.  But  that  had  not  taught  Becket 
(as  why  should  it?)  that  she  would  actually  take  none 
at  the  close,  and  she  shivered  anew  at  the  immediateness 
of  it  after,  when  as  if  by  a  forerunning  gust  of  her  the 
door  was  hurled  open  and  as  if  on  the  wings  of  that  des- 
perate cry  Madame  de  1'Etoile  rushed  in  and  past  her  like 
a  beautiful  tatter  of  whirlwind,  her  blue  cloak  streaming 
back  of  her  as  if  literally  from  that  dizzy  fall  of  Floria 
through  space,  and  thrusting  the  Watteau  screen  clatter- 
ing away  from  her  as  she  had  hurled  the  door,  turned 
by  her  dressing-table,  a  winged  Victory  gone  mad  and 
suddenly  halted  in  its  waves,  and  that  terrible  voice  of 
Tosca's  crying  out  of  the  stark  marble  face  in  a  fierce 
command : 

"Go  close  that  door  and  hold  it !    Run !" 

Becket  sped  to  the  door  and  tried  further  to  obey,  but 
all  her  Gibraltar  strength  and  spirit  could  not  hold  it 
against  the  attack  of  musical  Italy  whose  voice  stormed 
through  it. 

"Let  me  by!  Who  are  you  to  dare  to  keep  me  from 
her?"  And  the  Maestro,  ashake  with  passion  as  she 


434  The  Great  Way 

with  fright,  towered  over  her.    "Go  you,  outside,  and  stay 
there  until  I  come  out!" 

Having  failed  her  mistress,  with  a  sob  she  did  this 
new  bidding,  and  from  closing  the  door  hotly  upon  her 
he  turned  to  face  that  figure  across  the  room  from  him, 
to  go  toward  it,  to  stand  halted  by  the  flare  of  its  cry 
at  him: 

"Need  I  tell  you  again  that  I  am  again  a  woman  of 
manana?  I  will  not  talk  to  you  to-night — no,  not  to 
my  mother  and  father,  not  if  you  were  my  children! 
Until  to-morrow,  I  bid  you  go  outside  as  you  have  bidden 
her!" 

"I  will  talk  to  you !"  he  cried  passionately,  desperately, 

in  an  agony  of  terrified  love.    "Ah,  my  own,  my  own " 

It  was  furiously,  frenziedly  that  her  words  cut  him 
short : 

"Do  not  call  me  that!" 
"What  I  feared  for  you  has  come  to  you !" 
He  shivered  as  he   said  it;   and  her  swift   answering 
words  were  a  deliberate  lash. 

"Did  you  come  to  complain  about  my  singing?" 
Cut  to  the  soul  by  the  thong  of  it,  he  wiped  helpless 
tears  away. 

"You  were  miraculous !  They  are  mad  about  you ! 
Yes,  mad,  mad,  these  same  difficult  Londoners!  And 
you  insult  them,  refusing  your  curtain-calls  !" 

"I  sang  for  them,"  she  slashed,  "and  as  no  one  ever 
has  sung  for  therri !  I  have  gaven  them  what  they  paid 
for!  What  more  should  I  give?  Thanks?  Let  me  tell 
you,  7  am  not  thanking  even  God,  to-night !" 

"Once!n  he  pleaded.  "There  still  is  time!  Just  once 
before  the  curtain!*' 

"7  have  said,"  she  answered.  "Till  to-morrow,  go!" 
His  last  plea  abandoned  the  audience;  by  instinct  drew 
his  two  hands  forth  heartbrokenly,  despairingly,  for  him- 
self alone:  "My  own!"  And  the  hands  dropped  hope- 
less, empty,  at  her  cry  of  rage  at  the  words.  Husky, 
tremulous,  he  said:  "Forgive  me!  I  am  suffering!" 


The  Swing  of  the  Pendulum  435 

"A-a-a-ah!"  she  cried,  the  long  contemptuous  ejacula- 
tion a  very  shrug  of  musical  sound.  "Only  women  suffer 
at  the  closing  of  doors !  GOT' 

Outside  that  closed  door,  closed  now  as  for  an  eternity 
because  in  his  imagination  it  would  be  an  eternity  until 
to-morrow,  Becket,  her  fright  of  him  gone  at  the  sight 
of  him,  reached  out  a  hand,  quite  unconsciously  as  if  she 
were  a  mechanical  doll  built  to  pat  poor  folks,  as  he 
blindly  passed  her.  She  had  been  await,  eagerly  await, 
for  in  her  other  hand  something  was  clutched  tight,  tight 
as  in  a  mechanism,  something  with  which,  as  if  it  were 
somehow  a  protection  to  her  in  the  daring  she  must  em- 
bark on,  she  ran  swiftly  to  Madame. 

"Madam,  your  two  friends  that  were  here " 

"I  told  you  I  would  see  no  one !"  cried  Madame  fiercely. 
"Have  you  disobeyed  me?" 

"They  beg  so  hard,  madam!" 

Her  mistress  seized  her  shoulder  with  one  hand,  with 
the  other  pointed  toward  the  door. 

"You  followed  his  orders!  Will  you  obey  those 
strangers,  too,  instead  of  me?" 

"The  lady  is  crying,  and  I  felt  so  sorry  for  her, 

madam!  And  she  begs  in  the  name  of  these "  And 

Becket,  abruptly  as  if  a  penny  had  been  put  in  her, 
opened  her  tight  fist  palm  upward  and  displayed  there 
the  things  that  pennies  must  not  touch — the  Astarte 
beads ;  and  mechanically  recited  her  lesson :  "She  begs 
in  the  name  of  these  that  you  will  see  her,  madam !" 

A  shiver  came  over  the  woman,  a  moment  of  struggle 
at  the  twist  of  the  gargoyle  horn,  then  it  was  with  a 
hard  laugh  in  answer  to  the  new  grimace  of  episode  that 
she  took  the  tenderly  smiling  things  from  Becket's  hand. 

"Tell  her,"  and  she  spoke  slowly  to  register  the  reply 
lesson  in  the  mechanism,  "tell  her:  she  is  very  kind  to 
return  my  property  to  me!" 

With  a  gulp  for  reply,  Becket  left  her.  And  in  the 
silence  Madame  de  PEtoile  seated  herself  at  the  dressing- 
table  and  for  a  long  moment  gazed  at  herself  in  its  mirror. 


486  The  Great  Way 

As  she  gazed  on,  intent,  intense,  brooding,  suddenly  she 
became  aware  of  something,  as  of  something  seen  in  a 
pool,  and  horribly  fascinating  to  her.  It  was  the  violets 
that  had  stopped  undisturbed  there  since  she  had  dropped 
them  revoltedly  to  the  floor  hours  agone,  and  Becket  had 
recovered  them. 

Still  looking  at  them  in  the  pool  of  mirror,  she  felt  for 
them,  secured  them.  And  then  having  wrenched  her  eyes 
away  to  look  down  at  them,  she  lifted  them,  and  struck 
them,  and  again,  and  again  and  again,  on  the  edge  of  the 
dressing-table. 

"It  was  he  used  to  give  them  to  you!  He!  Now  you, 
you  give  them  to  me!" 

A  stroke  and  a  rhythmic,  hot  accent  of  word  .  .  .  and 
again,  again.  It  was  not  the  mere  wantonness  of  a 
wayward  one  now.  It  was  the  first  articulation  and  con- 
ducting of  the  stirring,  fermenting  melody  of  revolt  that 
with  that  motion,  hours  since,  to  repel  the  flowers  from 
her,  had  silently  begun  its  composition  in  the  nightingale's 
heart ;  the  beautiful  bouquet  a  malignant  baton,  the  white- 
hot  dulcet  words  a  song  of  hate. 

And  when  she  had  battered  the  lovely  thing  to 
brutally  scattered  fragments,  she  seized  up  the  Astarte 
beads,  and  again  gazing  into  the  mirror,  put  them  slowly, 
deliberately,  with  a  soundless  laugh,  around  her  neck.  It 
was  Part  Two,  silent  but  unmistakable  for  spirit  ears  to 
hear,  of  her  terrible  song,  throbbing  on  with  movements 
inevitably  rhythmical  as  she  went  from  the  dressing-table 
to  the  desk,  and  back  again  fetching  her  jewel-box,  and, 
again  at  gaze  into  the  mirror-pool,  selected  and  donned 
her  bandeau  of  brilliants,  and  selected  and  donned  more 
jewels,  more,  with  weighing,  calculating  fingers  and  eyes 
that  would  have  called  them,  if  the  song  had  spoken  here, 
"Loot!  Loot/" 

Almost  the  set  lips  were  smiling  "Loot!"  as  Becket 
re-entered  the  silent,  surcharged  room  and  with  a  beau- 
tiful determination  of  purpose  in  her  very  fear,  came  up 
behind  her. 


The  Swing  of  the  Pendulum  437 

"Madam,"  she  said,  "will  you  not  please  to  let  me 
help  you  some  way?  Madam,  indeed,  indeed,  as  a  kind- 
ness to  me?  Beforehand,  I  fear  I  did  not  please,  because 
I  thought  you  was  insane,  madam!  Now  I  know  better, 
madam ;  you  are  in  trouble !" 

The  pool-gazing  face  turned  slowly  to  Becket,  and 
brilliant  with  its  rich  bedizenment  fixed  her  with  its  dark 
eyes. 

"Attend  tu!  You  are  to  do  exactly  what  I  say! 
Take  the  car,  and  go  home — to  your  own  home — and 
dismiss  the  chauffeur  for  the  night.  On  the  way,  find  a 
public  car  and  send  it  here  to  wait  for  me  till  I  come 
out.  A  public  car!  You  failed  me  once  to-night — you 

failed  me — — "  And  a  glittering  finger  pointed :  " at 

that  door!  Will  you  fail  again?" 

"No,  oh,  no,  madam!"  exclaimed  Becket.  "But  you 
frighten  me,  and  I  wish  to  be  with  you !" 

"/  wish  to  be  alone!  I  have  a  purpose  to  wish  to  be 
alone,  right  here!"  And  the  question,  in  the  exact  tones 
of  its  first  asking,  asked  again:  "Will  you  fail  again?" 

"No,  no,  dear  madam,  I  will  not  fail  again !" 

"I  am  glad.  Good  night."  With  a  miserable  look 
back  of  her,  Becket  started  away;  but  the  voice  recalled 
her.  "Wait.  I — I  am  very  fond  of  you — Jane.  Kiss 
me."  She  lifted  an  arm  around  Becket's  neck,  drew  down 
the  tear-swollen  face,  and  kissed  its  lips.  "Good  night." 

Alone,  the  reflection  of  her  servant's  receding  figure 
vanished  from  the  pool  of  glass,  she  swept  together  the 
drooping  violets  scattered  on  the  dressing-table — two 
handfuls — gazed  down  at  their  withering  comrades  on 
the  floor,  rose  and  walked  to  the  door,  reopened  it  and 
gazed  out  across  the  great  space  of  boards. 

The  stage  was  already  dim. 

A  last  few  of  the  stage-hands  were  still  at  work  in  the 
dusky  light. 

Standing  back  on  to  the  sill  of  the  dressing-room  so 
that  she  was  framed  sharply  by  the  crisp  lines  of  the 
doorway,  she  lifted  her  violet-filled  hands  slowly  above 


488  The  Great  Way 

her  head  in  the  remaining  instinct  of  her  night's  terrific 
impulsion  of  drama,  and  as  if  with  its  last  vibrations 
crushed  a  thick  perfume  out  of  the  purple  flowers  into 
the  dim-ooloured  air. 

Then,  twisting  the  stricken  things  in  her  falling  hands, 
she  began  to  walk  forward  and  back  through  the  room. 
Again  and  again,  she  walked  forward,  back.  Forward, 
back  wtre  not  enough ;  and,  the  clenched  hands  of  it  some- 
times at  her  sides,  sometimes  lifted  to  press  the  hot  bruised 
blossoms  passionately  against  her  face,  the  silent  throb 
of  her  terrible  melody  carried  her  to  the  four  flowery  cor- 
ners of  the  room,  the  corner  of  the  marigolds,  the  corner 
of  the  pansies,  the  corners  of  the  roses  and  the  hyacinths. 
They  were  not  enough;  and  as  if  they  marked  the  boun- 
daries of  a  cage,  and  the  open  door  a  way  to  freer  con- 
fines, she  passed  through  it  to  the  great  painted  desert  of 
the  stage,  and  on  and  on,  and  back,  and  again,  on,  from 
side  to  side  of  it,  her  steps  falling  more  and  more  into  the 
pace  of  a  prowling  animal. 

If  God  was  answering  the  silent  awful  song  of  her 
soul  from  somewhere  above  her,  it  appeared  only  in  the 
wavering  of  a  dark,  vague  canvas  set.  A  stage-hand 
stepped  toward  her,  pointing  and  about  to  speak,  but  she 
only  glanced  up,  and  shrugged,  and  at  the  contemptuous 
motion,  and  the  sight  of  her  face,  he  wavered  an  instant, 
like  the  helpless  set,  then  went  hastily  away. 

Out  of  the  painted  desert  and  its  dim-lit  night,  her 
strange  way  and  her  rhythmic  silence  led  her — back  into 
the  brilliant  nightingale  cage  of  flowers.  And  centred  in 
it,  suddenly,  she  halted.  The  desert  path  was  strewn  with 
most  of  the  violets  that  had  been  in  her  hands.  The  last 
petals  that  stopped  in  them  she  lifted  in  the  two  palms, 
and  deliberately,  to  know  the  full  bitterness  of  violets,  ate 
them.  Then  dashing  the  emptied  hands  together,  she 
looked  slowly  upward. 

"So,  God,  that  is  how  You  had  it  planned !  Very  well ! 
God,  I  defy  You  utterly !" 

With  the  cessation  of  motion  the  beating  melody  had 


The  Swing  of  the  Pendulum  439 

changed  from  the  rhythm  of  silence  to  the  rhythm  of 
sound. 

"So,  after  my  long  struggle,  that  is  how  You  had  it 
fixed !  What  was  the  use,  then  ?  For  what  have  I  fought 
to  become  good,  and  to  express  You?  Are  You  a  sarcas- 
tic, sneering  God?  Evidently!  Very  well!  At  least  I 
now  know  that,  and  there  ends  some  of  Your  power!  Is 
it  not  so? 

"To-night,  You  have  answered  me  and  my  long  at- 
tempt. Now  I  shall  answer  You.  Hereafter,  I  shall  live 
as  I  choose.  You  know  perfectly,  that  I  turned  from  the 
streets  and  their  life,  and  staggered  upward.  And  for 
that,  what  have  I?  I  have  bitterness,  horrible,  unbear- 
able bitterness.  Is  that  the  reward  of  leaving  an  unthink- 
ing life  for  a  thinking  one?  Then  I  shall  go  back  again! 
The  pendulum  has  swung ! 

'Since  time  began  for  me,  at  the  Epiphany,  it  has 
swung  from  pole  to  pole  for  me — swung  from  the  wrong 
side  of  hell  to  the  other  side  of  heaven. 

"Now,  let  it  swing  back!  Let  it  swing  as  it  will  with 
me,  without  my  thinking  or  caring,  until  time  stops,  and 
I  hang  motionless  in  death  with  the  rest  of  the  unthink- 
ing, uncaring  world !  From  now  on,  I  shall  not  think  or 
care,  except  for  what  time's  moment  brings,  and  to  have 
my  all  of  what  that  world  calls  'life,'  and  'living.' 

"Hereafter,  I  shall  live  exactly  howsoever  I  desire. 
And  if  the  world  has  a  calamity  in  the  fact  that  my  voice 
suffer,  then  You,  God,  will  suffer  more,  for  You  gave  it 
to  me. 

"Anyway,  the  voice  has  been  mine,  and  I  have  been 
worthy  of  it,  and  fulfilled  it,  and  there  the  matter  ends. 

"And  there,  God,  is  Your  tragedy!  What  has  been 
given  by  You,  cannot,  even  by  You,  be  taken  from  me! 
What  has  been,  even  You  cannot  alter!  For  instance, 
I  had  him,  for  a  whole  week,  in  the  Calle  del  Carmen ! 

"And  having  taken  him  away  from  me;  and  then  after 
long  years  having  taken  the  hope  of  him  from  me,  with 
one  dagger  into  me  from  Your  having  sent  me  that  hope 


440  The  Great  Way 

at  all,  inspired  me  with  it,  and  another  and  worse  one  in 
the  form  of  my  own  natural,  pitiable,  mere  thought  of  in- 
fidelity to  it;  and  finally,  to-night,  after  having  let  me 
with  complete  contrition  turn  back  again  to  beautiful 
vision  and  replete,  completer  Faith,  shown  it  all,  all,  as 
a  hideous  laugh  at  me,  what  more  can  You  do?  I  ask 
You — what  more  can  You  do? 

"Take  away  the  fact  of  that  week?  No.  Or  stop  me 
from  that  backward  swing  of  the  pendulum  to  the  old 
life,  that  old  life  that  I  lived  with  a  purpose,  the  purpose 
of  keeping  body  and  soul  together  in  the  world  You  threw 
me  down  into,  and  that  now  I  shall  live  without  the  hateful 
necessity?  No. 

"Or,  after  all,  can  You?  Can  You  stop  me?  If  You 
can,  how  are  You  going  to?  What  new  distorted  grin 
of  fate  can  You  think  of  now,  with  which  to  frighten  me 
off  from  it? 

"For  let  me  tell  You  something — that  I  shall  play 
a  different  part  in  that  life  now!  Now,  7  am  the  one 
with  money !  7  shall  be  the  one  that  need  not  think ! 
I  shall  be  the  one  that  need  not  suffer — the  one  to  close 
doors,  to  hurl  them  shut,  without  the  need  of  pain !  Thir 
time,  7  shall  be  the  man!  Where  money  need  be  paid  inter 
the  Trudge  Market,  7  shall  pay !" 

Pendulum-swing  or  prowl  of  baited  creature,  the 
melody  was  now  of  double  rhythm,  rhythm  of  motion  to- 
gether with  rhythm  of  sound,  for  again  she  was  walking, 
walking,  walking;  and  a  laugh  broke  from  her,  its  music 
waving  with  the  sway  of  her  skirts  to  the  mad  time  of  her 
terrible  pacing. 

"Again,  the  old  walk,  walk,  walk,  walk,  walk! 

Yet "  And  again  the  laugh  gusted  out  from  the  room 

and  along  the  dusky  stage:  " 1  need  not  walk  now! 

Now  I  need  only  summon !" 

The  stage  was  almost  black.  One  light  shone,  far 
across  from  her.  One  stage-hand  hovered  ghostlike  in  the 
wavering  shadows. 


The  Swing  of  the  Pendulum  441 

"I  have  told  You  in  words,  God,  that  I  utterly  defy 
You.  Now  I  tell  You  so  in  act." 

She  stepped  forward  into  the  doorway  and  its  streak 
of  illumination  that  ran  from  the  rich  nightingale  cage 
out  against  the  wings. 

"Do  You  see  that  poor  dirty  stage-hand  over  there? 
Probably  You  do,  for  the  world  says  You  watch  the 
meanest  of  Your  creatures.  Well,  watch  me,  too,  as  I 
step  back  into  the  gutter!  You  who  set  the  pendulum 
in  motion,  watch  it  swing  in  me,  in  me,  de  1'Etoile,  who 
struggled  her  way  upward  from  poverty  and  its  spiritual 
dirt  to  money  and  its  spiritual  caste !  Watch  me  go 
defiantly  back  along  the  Gran  Via,  not  from  necessity 
now,  but  because  I  choose  and  because  I  dare,  because 
when  I  strove  toward  You  and  set  my  teeth  to  believe  in 
You,  You  injured  and  laughed  at  and  bruised  me  !  Yours 
is  the  Great  Way — watch  how  I  travel  it,  then !" 

Laughing,  she  gazed  across  the  great  stage  and  im- 
periously beckoned  the  solitary  stage-hand  toward  her. 
As  she  leaned  back  against  the  doorway  he  came  over 
with  shambling,  hesitant  gait — a  short,  street-type  of  man 
with  his  cap  pulled  to  one  side  of  his  head. 

"Come  here,  boy."  He  came  close  to  her,  but  em- 
barrassed, and  with  averted  face,  and  she  laughed  softly. 
"I  see  you  are  the  last  man  here.  Well,  the  last  man 
shall  be  the  first!  Come  in  here!  What  is  the  matter?'* 
And  she  laughed  again.  "Are  you  gliied  to  those  wings, 
like  an  angel?" 

She  drew  him  in  through  the  doorway,  and  he  sub- 
mitted fascinated  at  the  touch  of  her  fingers,  reluctant 
like  a  shy  adolescent  boy,  keeping  his  eyes  from  her,  his 
hands  twisting  themselves  together  as  if  they  longed  to 
have  his  cap  in  them. 

"Boy,  you  know  who  I  am,  I  suppose?  But  I  need 
not  have  asked  that — you  have  seemed  to  be  at  my  heels 
the  whole  performance!  You  look  the  Apache  from  the 
dark  arteries  of  obscurest  Paris !  It  is  obvious  that  God 
sent  you  to  London  especially  for  me!  I  noticed  your 


442  The  Great  Way 

cap  from  under  my  hat.  We  wear  them  at  exactly  the 
same  angle!  I  think  you  have  had  actually  the  im- 
pertinence to  admire  me !  Well,  your  impudence  is  to  be 
strangely  rewarded — yes,"  and  she  repeated  the  word 
wickedly:  "strangely!  I  have  a  car  waiting  for  me.  I 
am  not  going  home  to-night.  I  wish  you  to  ride  with  me." 

He  did  not  answer,  and  she  laid  a  hand  upon  his  arm. 

"You  know  I  am  Madame  de  PEtoile.  And  I  mean 
what  I  say.  I  do  not  care  that  you  know  who  I  am." 

Again  he  did  not  answer.  His  back  was  toward  her, 
and  she  laid  both  her  hands  upon  his  shoulders.  When 
she  spoke  now,  her  beautiful  voice  was  the  wheedle  of  the 
streets,  its  heavenly  music  purring  in  innuendo,  exquisite, 
horrible. 

"I  tell  you  I  do  not  care  that  you  know  who  I  am! 
I  wish  you  to  go  with  me." 

She  could  feel  him  trembling  under  her  hands,  but  still 
he  was  silent. 

"Come !"  she  whispered,  drawing  him  backward  toward 
her,  with  her  arms  slipping  slowly  round  his  neck,  and 
then  with  her  cheek  pushing  off  his  cap  and  burying  her 
lips  in  his  black  hair.  "What  is  the  matter  with  you? 
Have  you  a  wife  that  you  are  afraid  of?" 

"2Vo/w  The  short  syllable  was  low  and  husky, 
though  with  a  helpless  passion  in  it  that  had  seemed  to 
force  him  to  speak  it. 

She  laughed,  drawing  him  still  closer  against  her. 

"But,"  she  exclaimed  with  her  low  laughing  tones  al- 
most incredulous,  "you  are  not  going  to  tell  me,  boy,  that 
you  are  scrupulous — you,  of  your  class?  Good!  More 
and  more  then,  I  can  do  the  utmost  that  I  could  wish  to 
do!  As  you  are  scrupulous,  like  a  woman,  what  is  your 
pricef" 

He  started  to  look  at  her,  but  could  not  make  himself, 
and  the  twisting  motion  of  his  body  in  her  embrace  turned 
to  an  impulsion  of  flight  from  her  through  the  doorway, 
and  wrenched  from  her  a  commanding,  an  equally  instinc- 
tive, cry. 


The  Swing  of  the  Pendulum  MS 

"Wait!" 

He  slumped  in  the  fierce  mandate  of  it,  quivering. 

"You  have  seen  and  heard  to-night,  me,  Madame  de 
1'Etoile.  Come,  then,  I  am  Madame  de  PEtoile,  mind, 
and  I  am  not  used  to  being  disobeyed!" 

He  was  trembling  more  and  more  in  her  arms,  yet 
again  he  did  not  answer  in  words,  while  slowly,  as  if 
compelled  more  by  some  burning  impulse  in  himself  than 
by  her  burning  lips  or  the  contemptuous  words  that  had 
fallen  from  them,  he  put  his  hand  into  his  trouser  pocket 
and  having  withdrawn  it,  held  up  to  her,  back  over  his 
shoulder,  a  tight  fistful  of  money. 

As  she  realized  what  it  was  her  answering  voice  began 
as  a  laugh  derisive,  that  slid  swiftly  into  tones  of  anger 
and  ended  in  a  cry  of  rage — but  rage  which,  though  it 
tore  through  the  entire  entity  of  her,  body  and  soul,  yet 
did  not  tear  away  her  hands  from  him,  but  coursed 
through  their  clinging  and  dug  her  fingers  into  him  so 
that  his  head  and  shoulders  were  crushed  back  against 
her  bosom. 

"You  poor,  pathetic  fool!  Did  you  think  that  you 
could  pay  me?  Yet  I  could  love  you  for  being  willing  to, 
you  poor  thing  at  a  few  shillings  a  week !  Do  you  insult 
me,  or  is  it  tribute?  Shall  I  love  you,  literally  love  you, 
or  hate  you,  stamp  on  you?  Put  it  away,  I  tell  you!" 

At  her  screaming  order  his  hand  obediently  fell;  yet 
he  stubbornly  kept  his  shaking  fist  around  the  money  and 
would  not  return  it  to  his  pocket. 

"You  poor  fool,"  she  said  again,  holding  him  power- 
less against  her,  and  laying  her  quivering  face  upon  his 
head,  "I  believe  that  in  your  beastly  man's  pride  you 
thought  you  could  pay  me — you,  a  low,  pathetic  labourer, 
pay  me,  a  woman  rich  in  money  beyond  your  dreams, 
rich  in  power  beyond  the  dreams  of  the  richest  bad  men 
of  social  London!  I  tell  you,  boy,  I  offered  myself  to 
you!  And  if  my  contemptuousness  has  so  angered  you 
that  you  would  dare  deny  me,  I  will  not  have  you  kicked 
out  of  the  house  to-morrow,  as  I  could,  I  will  yet  buy 


444  The  Great  Way 

you!  I  have  offered  you  money.  If  I  must,  I  will  take 
the  jewels  off  of  my  hands  and  cast  them  before  you! 
What  frightens  you  so?  The  very  bedazzlement  of  what 
I  offer  you?  Let  me  teach  you  more  of  the  jewelry  then! 
Boy — man — I  have  not  had  my  arms  even  thus  far  around 
a  man's  heart  for  years !  Years !  And  you  thought  that 
I  would  take  your  little  money!  And  you  still  have  it 
in  your  hand!  How  do  you  dare,  when  I  have  said  to 
put  it  away?  I  will  show  you  the  power  of  money  with 
me — I  will  show  you  a  fire  in  my  eyes  that  will  light  it 
into  flames  to  sear  your  hand !  Let  me  tell  you  some- 
thing !  I  am  a  woman  who  has  defied  God,  and  I  will  not 
be  defied !  Turn  around  and  look  at  me !  Turn  around, 
I  tell  you,  and  look  me  in  the  eyes !" 

And  as  she  drew  away  her  passionate  hands  he  turned, 
shaking  horribly  from  head  to  foot,  and  looked  into  them. 

"So,"  he  said,  "you  are,  and  were,  what  Lola  said  you 
merer 

She  stared  for  a  second,  then  with  a  wild  cry  recoiled 
from  him,  the  hands  fluttering,  seeking  for  support  upon 
the  canvas  set. 

"Holy  God!    Holy  God!    3 aimer 

She  raised  the  hands  to  cover  her  face,  but  as  if, 
robbed  of  their  grasp  upon  the  canvas,  her  weakness  were 
too  great  for  her,  she  swept  them  blindly  back  of  her 
again,  clinging  as  she  had  clung  to  the  window  of  the 
Royal  in  the  Rambla,  long  ago. 

"God !     God !     You  have  answered  me !"  she  whispered. 

He  took  a  faltering  step  toward  her,  and  she  stared 
at  him  dazedly,  almost  unbelievingly. 

"So  my  little  friend — Lola — betrayed  me!" 

Though  his  step  had  faltered  before  her,  his  hands 
clinched  with  his  words. 

"No,  Madame  de  VEtoile,  with  all  your  jewelry  and 
money  to  command  and  summon,  you  shall  not  say  that 
word  'betrayed'  about  Lola,  who  worshipped  you  as  I 
did!" 

"Yet,"  she   whispered,   still   staring  pitiably   at   him, 


The  Swing  of  the  Pendulum  445 

"she  told  that  about  me,  to  you "  And  a  little  sob 

crept  into  her  voice:  "she,  my  little  friend!  Oh,  tell  me 
about  her,  Jaime,  if  you  know!  What  became  of  her?" 

"Yes,"  he  said,  slowly,  bitterly,  "I  can  tell  you  about 
Lola !  We  did  everything  you  told  us  to.  We  got  married 
because  we  promised  you  we  would  if  something  should 
happen  to  you.  I  turned  to  a  scene-shifter  because  you 
said  I  should,  and  trusted  God  to  care  for  us  in  the 
summer.  And  He  did.  You  were  like  a  saint  to  me  and 
Lola.  And  when  at  last  God  was  blessing  us  with  a 
child,  we  hoped  it  would  be  a  girl-child,  so  that  we  could 
name  it  after  you !  Yes,  even  I,  the  father,  hoped  that 
our  first  child  would  be  a  girl-child, — for  your  sake.  But 
even  a  good  woman  can  be  jealous,  and  it  was  when  I  said 
that  once  too  often,  with  her  in  her  condition — which  you, 
Madame  de  PEtoile,  a  woman  knowing  nothing  of  such 
matters,  yet  even  so  might  try  to  understand ! — it  was 
then  when  I  said  that  once  too  many,  that  she  cries  out 
on  me,  'You  love  me,  your  wife,  less  than  her,  and  if  it  ** 
a  girl-child,  I  shall  therefore  call  her  "Bitter,"  "Bitter" 
instead !  Do  you  know  what  our  Saint  was  ?  Do  you 
know  how  your  rent  used  to  be  paid?  Do  you  remember 
the  money  she  used  to  find  in  the  street  ?  She  found  it  m 
the  street,  yes,  but  not  by  looking  at  the  ground!  She  was 
a  bad  girl!'  And  do  you  know  what  I  did  at  those  words, 
'She  was  a  bad  girl'?  7  hit  her!" 

The  woman  before  him,  staring  at  him,  drinking  in  his 
words,  had  made  no  answer  save  once,  and  again,  a  plain- 
tive little  "Oh !"  but  here  at  his  terrible  imitatory  gesture 
she  cried  sharply  out  as  if  she  had  herself  been  brutally 
struck,  and  again  her  hands  struggled  for  their  support 
back  of  her. 

"And  when  the  child  is  born,  7  name  her  not  Dulce, 
but  Dolores,  for  with  my  blow  and  the  birth  Lola  dies, 
and  dies  on  your  account!" 

A  moan  came  from  the  woman  before  him.  Her  hands 
were  helpless  now.  The  strip  of  the  painted  desert  that 
she  had  clung  to  was  less  prop  than  had  been  even  the 


446  The  Great  Way 

slippery  glass  of  the  far-off  Rambla  window ;  and  she  sank 
slowly  to  the  floor.  From  her  crushed,  sitting  posture  her 
voice  came  in  a  terrible  faint  whisper. 

"And  it  was  Lola  told  me :  'She  kills  herself.  But  first 
the  kills  her  parents,  friend,  and  lover'!  God,  you  have 
answered  me!" 

He  stood  over  her  with  his  speech  more  rapid  in  the 
conflict  of  his  two  fighting  emotions,  the  desire  to  hurt, 
and  the  rending  of  unconquerable  love. 

"And  to-night,  you  cheat  me  out  of  even  my  revenge! 
When,  since  the  time  Dolores  was  born,  I  have  kept  on 
shifting  scenes  as  you  told  me  to,  but  doing  it  in  this 
England  watching  to  have  my  revenge  upon  you,  because 
it  was  for  an  Englishman  that  you  betrayed  me,  now 
since  I  have  found  you,  I  cannot,  for  despite  you  are  all 
covered  with  your  high  station  and  your  jewelry,  you 
are  in  a  great  trouble  and  I  am  sorry  for  you  and  I  can 
do  nothing!  I  did  not  know  what  I  would  do,  for  I  could 
never  hit  you  as  I  hit  Lola,  having  thought  about  it 
beforehand !  And  when  I  have  known  you  are  an  opera- 
singer,  and  will  sing  the  Traviata,  I  think  I  will  wait, 
and  the  money  I  have  saved,  the  sum  you  must  have 
helped  with  on  the  rent,  I  will  throw  at  you  in  that  opera, 
but  when  I  saw  you  at  rehearsal,  saw  you  at  last,  I 
thought  I  could  not  wait  for  Traviata,  and  I  will  go  out 
when  to-night  comes  and  on  the  stage  while  you  are  sing- 
ing, tell  your  crowd  what  you  were !  And  to-night  comes, 
and  I  have  not  the  heart,  for  I  see  that  Englishman  here 
to  see  you,  and  with  another  woman!  And  I  know  then 
that  he  has  thrown  you  out  for  her,  as  you  threw  out  me 
for  him,  and  I  have  not  the  heart  left  in  me  against  you !" 

Only  another  little  moan  came  from  her  in  the  bitterness 
of  it. 

"But,"  and  his  voice  flared  to  determination  in  a  gust 
of  recaptured  hate  through  his  desolate  love,  "thus  much 
heart  I  have  left,  that  you  have  got  to  take  back  that 
money  for  the  rent  you  helped  to  pay,  yes,  this  money 
that  I  have  here  in  my  hand !" 


The  Swing  of  the  Pendulum  447 

And  at  that  twist  of  the  gargoyle  horn  a  cry,  words, 
came  from  her. 

"Oh,  Jaime,  Jaime!"  she  begged  him,  shrinking  back 
from  the  hand,  struggling  with  her  own  hands  on  the 
floor. 

"Yes !  Yes !  You  must  take  it !"  he  cried  desperately. 
"You  must,  you  must!  Anything,  anything  I  would  do 
for  you,  Madame  de  1'Etoile,  except  not  make  you  take 
back  this  money  for  the  rent !" 

And  despite  her  pitiful  outcry  he  seized  her,  and  over- 
bore the  terribly  fluttering  hands,  and  thrust  the  money 
down  into  the  bosom  of  her  gown.  Then  with  a  sob  he 
dropped  her,  for  he  thought  he  had  choked  her. 

His  hands  and  their  money  had  touched  the  Astarte 
beads,  and  with  the  flashing  thought  of  their  exquisite 
tradition  they  seemed  to  her  to  have  shrunk  like  a  noose 
around  her  throat,  and  a  strangling  cry  had  come  from  it. 

Through  her  stark  gaze  upward  at  his  terrified  face 
and  shaking  figure,  she  succeeded  in  speaking  to  him. 

"You  have  not  hurt  me,  Jaime,  except  my  feelings." 

Another  and  a  different  sob  broke  from  him  and  he 
stepped  back  to  her,  and  fetched  the  money  out  of  her 
frock. 

"Even  that,  I  cannot  do  to  you !" 

He  stepped  forward  into  the  light  of  the  beautiful  room 
and  threw  it  despairingly  into  the  four  corners,  among  the 
thrown-away  flowers,  and  stood  himself  among  them 
wilted  and  drooping  as  they,  bent-shouldered. 

She  had  struggled  shaking  to  her  feet. 

"Oh,  Jaime,"  she  whispered,  going  slowly  over  to 
him,  "you  would  never  understand !  Jaime,  is  there  noth- 
ing in  the  whole  wide  world  that  I  can  do  for  you?" 

He  hung  his  head,  and  threw  out  his  hands  from  his 
sides  in  a  hopeless  gesture. 

"Yoirgave  me  Lola.     And  she  is  dead." 

"Oh,  Jaime,  Jaime,"  she  pleaded,  "all  these  years  I 
have  not  been  as  I  was  to  you  just  now!  Oh,  Jaime, 
will  you  not  let  me  give  you  these,  yes,  all  these,"  and 


448  The  Great  Way 

her  hands  not  only  lifted  their  own  glitter,  but  lifted  on 
to  the  glitter  of  her  hair,  "for  your  little — Dolores?" 

"No,  no!"  he  cried  sharply,  merciless  again.  "If — 
if  it  was  a  man-child,  perhaps  you  could  not  hurt  it,  but — 
yes,  I  will,  I  do  want  to  hurt  your  feelings,  any  way  I  can, 
and  my  grtrZ-child  shall  not  wear  your  jewels,  Madame  de 
1'Etoile!" 

For  a  moment,  her  head  sank  completely;  then  she 
looked  up  at  him. 

"So  there  is  nothing,  nothing  I  can  do  for  you,  Jaime?" 

He  stood  before  her  in  silence  for  a  moment. 

"No,"  he  said  then,  shaking  his  head,  "I  think  there 
is  nothing  we  can  do  for  each  other,  on  account  of  your 
character." 

With  quivering  lips,  she  nodded,  her  eyes  away  from 
him  for  an  instant,  then  seeking  his  again. 

"Good-bye,  Jaime." 

"Good-bye,  Dulce." 

Almost  unconsciously,  and  like  two  miserable,  unhappy 
children,  they  kissed  each  other  farewell,  their  hands  cling- 
ing together  for  a  moment.  Then  Jaime,  pulling  his  cap 
still  further  down  over  his  eye,  shambled,  stoop-shouldered, 
from  the  room. 

When  he  had  disappeared,  she  stood  gazing  before  her 
until  the  sounds  of  his  heavy  footfalls  had  died  fully 
away. 

"God,  You  have  answered  me !"  she  whispered. 

She  looked  dazedly,  strangely  about  the  room,  went  to 
the  dressing-table  for  her  jewel-box,  to  the  desk  for  her 
other  box  of  jewels,  the  case  of  little  red  books,  and 
clutching  them  against  her  under  her  cloak,  went  swiftly, 
silently  out. 


CHAPTER  XL 

LA    GEAN    VIA 

THE  Sagrada  Montana  is  a  thing  vast  and  very  beauti- 
ful, and  its  history  is  very  wonderful  and  strange.  In 
Catalan,  the  language  of  the  Catalonian  peasants,  it  is 
called  Montsagrat,  Sacred  Mountain;  to  all  other 
'Spaniards,  it  is  known  as  "Montserrat" — serrated  moun- 
tain, notched  mountain,  mountain  with  upturned  teeth, 
like  the  teeth  of  a  saw. 

It  is  Spain's  guardian  and  miracle  of  the  Pyrenees, 
rising  sudden,  unaccountable  and  isolate  out  of  the  great 
plain  of  Catalonia,  overwhelming  with  its  huge  immobile 
grandeur  the  soft  round  foothills  swelling  and  aspiring 
all  about. 

It  is  a  mammoth  mountain  of  sheer  stone.  It  towers 
four  thousand  feet  above  the  surrounding  hills. 

In  the  distance,  its  great  bulk  lifting  to  triumph  the 
cragged  line  of  wild  stone  forms  along  its  top,  it  looks 
like  a  legendary  and  impossible  castle,  ineffable  in  power, 
quietness,  and  beauty. 

It  is  pure  grey  in  colour. 

And  the  purity  of  this  rough  stone  grey  is  set  exotically 
and  arrestingly  in  the  midst  of  perfect  and  contrasting 
hues. 

Though  Spam  is  a  bright  and  southern  country,  it  is 
here  as  if  God  had  not  intended  the  sharp  sunlit  painting 
of  an  Italy  or  a  Mediterranean  Africa ;  it  is  as  if  He  had 
taken  His  palette  of  colours  and  thoughtfully  mixed  His 
tints  and  then  deliberately  sifted  them  down  through  a 
sieve  of  fine  air — choosing  pink  and  white  to  dominate 
the  hills  with  modifying  streaks  of  gentle  green,  and  leav- 

449 


450  The  Great  Way 

ing  the  chance  of  sky  to  make  the  whole  acute  or  suave 
with  its  mood  of  haply  brilliant  blue,  or  happily  cobalt 
thinned  with  haze. 

Such  are  these  big  and  little  foothills  of  the  Pyrenees 
that  undulate  and  slowly  raise  the  Catalonian  plain— 
small  round  and  oval  mountains  of  pink  and  red-pink 
earth,  ridged  and  beautifully  lined  with  natural  terraces 
of  crumbling  white  stone,  as  if  they  were  ancient  tinted 
amphitheatres,  conical  instead  of  concave — to  outlook  a 
panorama  of  Life  instead  of  a  concentric  play  of  it — and 
climbed  over  by  the  yellow  and  green  of  straggling  vine- 
yards and  dotted  with  the  deeper  and  pyramidal  green  of 
little  cork  trees. 

And  from  out  of  them  abruptly,  stands  the  Sagrada 
Montana,  unreasoning  and  final  from  its  immense  base 
to  its  fantastic  crown  of  tortured  stone,  as  if  the  maddest 
of  architects  had  built  it  there  in  a  deathly  ecstasy.  To 
the  pilgrim  whose  vision  comes  upon  it  unexpectant,  it 
is  unreal,  miraculous — like  a  mirage,  or  a  grotesquerie  of 
cloud.  For  in  this  austere  yet  ever  sensuous  country, 
why,  suddenly,  a  bare  and  dominant  mastodon  of  granite? 

Almost  pendulous  in  its  quality  of  beauty,  yet  gigan- 
tically strong,  like  a  Colossus,  in  its  effect  of  standing 
boldly  and  confidently  on  the  earth,  it  is  grey,  grey,  for 
ever  wonderfully  grey.  Grey  everywhere ;  save  in  one  spot 
where,  near  its  centre,  two-thirds  toward  its  top,  clings 
the  yellow-brown  Monastery  of  the  Montserrat,  an  eyrie 
cloister  built  of  yellow  bricks,  seemingly  intermingled 
with,  only  dimly  segregate  from,  the  massive  rock.  To 
the  eye  looking  upward  from  the  terrible  base,  it  is  merely 
as  if  God  had  here  stained  the  grey  granite  with  the 
faint  yellow  of  dripping  water. 

And  indeed,  at  certain  seasons,  water  gushes  jifst 
above  this  high  and  distant  spot,  through  the  very  body 
of  the  granite  monster.  For  though  discernible  from 
below  only  as  a  dark  line,  like  a  vein  in  the  big  grey  body, 
here  above  the  monastery  lies  the  wild,  rugged  fissure 
of  the  sacred  pile,  the  fearful  Voile  Malo,  the  "Bad 


La  Gran  Via  451 

Valley,"  that  leads  from  the  high  niche  of  the  holy  settle- 
ment, on  up  and  up,  and  through  and  through,  the 
wondrous  mountain — ever  higher  and  higher,  through  this 
last  third  of  its  dreadful  height,  to  its  utmost  top. 

In  His  creation  of  it,  God  had  one  more  thought:  He 
placed  at  the  foot  of  the  giant,  like  a  liquid  serpent  ward- 
ing it,  the  beautiful  and  winding  Llobregat,  Spain's 
prettiest  and  most  tortuous  brown  river,  which  cuts  and 
cuts  its  way  about  the  base,  through  a  fair  circuitous 
valley  of  the  multitudinous  pink  and  white  round  hills. 

But  at  that  time,  when  the  stone  mountain  and  its 
guardian  river  were  but  newly  created,  there  was  no  Voile 
Malo. 

Then,  the  Sacred  Mountain  was  a  thick,  unimpregnated 
mass  of  solidity:  peopled  all  over  with  vegetation,  to  be 
sure,  green  and  flourishing  on  its  heavy  unresponsive  grey, 
but  without  any  rend  and  tear  of  artery  through  the  heart 
or  lungs  of  it.  It  was  quite  solid. 

Then  Christ  came  into  the  world,  and  left  it;  making 
in  it  and  bequeathing  to  it  the  most  awful  and  immeas- 
urable space  of  history  destined  for  it,  and  culminating 
this  record  with  the  most  lasting  and  exquisite  of  all  the 
world's  deaths. 

And  at  the  moment  of  that  death,  of  the  actual  escape 
of  His  spirit  from  the  poor  lacerated  carrion  thus  aban- 
doned on  the  cross,  far  away  in  Spain  the  great  stoical 
granite  mountain  screamed  and  wept,  and  in  its  protest 
and  horror  rent  itself  asunder,  and  held  up  for  God's 
sympathy  and  approval  a  great  wound  in  its  breast. 

So  the  Bad  Valley  was  created — because,  and  at  the 
moment  when,  the  terrific  Man  died. 

Perhaps  the  storm  and  bleeding  of  that  huge  catas- 
trophe were  written  on  the  walls  of  this  Voile  Malo,  in 
characters  of  crevice  and  fissure,  in  some  un-readable 
language  of  God's  own. 

It  is  possible.  Yet  this  "bad"  valley  is  truly  a  place 
of  equally  unutterable  peace  and  quietness,  and  the  actual 


452  The  Great  Way 

terror  and  morbid  thunder-and-lightning  fright  of  the 
Crucifixion  do  not  breathe  from  it  or  in  it. 

The  reason  for  this  is  very  simple.  God's  answer  to 
all  mysterious  and  humanly  unanswerable  things,  is  Time. 
And  here  in  the  Voile  Malo  His  slow  pendulum  has  swung 
forth  and  back,  grazing  the  rough  angry  walls  for  years 
and  more  years  and  then  hundreds  of  years,  until  all  the 
hideousness  and  morbidness  of  the  tragedy  are  gone,  and 
only  the  grandeur  and  solemnity  and  symbol  and  beauty 
remain.  That  is  God's  beautiful  way.  His  grand  way. 

Then,  later  on,  the  Sacred  Mountain  took  its  first  erect 
step,  like  an  infant  after  crawling — its  step  into  tangible 
history,  a  step  timorous  yet  decisive,  holding  fast  to  the 
guiding  hand  of  God  and  lifting  its  foot  waveringly  for- 
ward, setting  it  down  upon  the  terra  firma  of  desultory 
manuscript,  keeping  it  bravely  there  until  the  queer,  tor- 
tured nature  of  the  Middle  Ages  happily  resolved  and 
expressed  itself  in  the  great  art  of  Printing,  and  died 
upon  the  rude  altar  of  Architecture  that  it  had  built  for 
itself — died  smiling,  with  its  arms  stretched  out  to  its 
child  which  had  killed  it:  the  printing-press. 

And  while  it  was  taking  this  early  baby  step,  the  Sacred 
Mountain  had  looked  down  and  seen,  as  it  were,  some  of 
God's  small  insects  climbing  up  about  its  doubtfully  de- 
scending foot — a  small  incidental  swarm  of  ants,  patiently 
building  a  little  yellow-brown  ant-hill. 

Of  its  own  very  nature  patient,  even  in  its  youth,  the 
Mountain  did  not  stamp  the  ant-hill  away;  and  so  new 
history  began,  and  throve. 

The  black  ants  were  monks ;  the  ant-hill  was  the  yellow 
monastery. 

The  Mountain  smiled. 

It  had  no  need  to  crush  the  builders  or  their  building. 
The  ant-hill  was  destined  to  be  withered  or  let  live  by 
God  or  Time,  according  to  the  will  of  Time  or  God.  The 
Sacred  Mountain  could  afford  to  smile.  God's  pendulum 
was  long:  it  was  now  only  eight  centuries  since  the  death 
of  Christ. 


La  Gran  Via  453 

The  ants  worked  on  and  prospered.  But  Time,  too, 
even  more  indefatigably  than  ants,  is  for  ever  at  work; 
and  the  slow  pendulum  swung  and  swung  and  crumbled 
the  ant-hill.  Yet  the  black  ants  were  ever  fervent  and 
patient,  and  built  and  re-built  the  yellow  monastery. 

And  it  is^  said,  by  word  of  mouth,  and,  since,  by  the 
long-ago  parchment  manuscripts  painfully  written — so 
painfully  as  the  use  of  blood  for  ink  quite  often — before 
the  rosy  dawn  of  printing,  and,  still  since,  by  many  a 
printed  word,  too,  that  God,  like  the  Mountain,  smiled 
upon  these  ants  for  their  zealous  insistence,  and  reward- 
ingly  put  into  their  keeping  the  Holy  Grail,  and  therefrom 
into  their  history  Parsifal,  and  Kundry,  and  Amfortas. 

It  may  be  so.  For  could  anything  be  more  fabulous 
than  such  a  Sacred  Mountain? 

Just  now,  in  our  own  little  Time  of  very  different 
wonders,  near  to  the  base  of  the  mountain  and  on  this 
side  of  the  river  Llobregat,  there  is  a  crude  and  homely 
little  railroad  station,  called  Monistrol. 

Into  all  this  beauty,  out  of  the  arriving  train  from 
Barcelona,  a  woman  stepped  onto  the  platform  of  this 
mean  wooden  station  of  Monistrol.  In  the  golden  sun- 
shine, out  of  the  thick  of  her  pre-occupation,  she  gasped 
at  the  beauty  before  her  and  around  her  (for  she  gazed 
vaguely  about)  ;  a  beauty  that,  though  dwelling  in  every 
possible  direction  of  the  eye,  seemed  especially  to  concen- 
trate, and  run  in  a  determined  track,  straight  toward  the 
grey  mystery  of  stone  immediately  opposite  her.  Swiftly 
she  remembered  that  her  railway  journey  was  not  yet  over, 
and  she  hurried  across  the  platform,  went  through  a  tall 
gate,  and  took  her  place  in  the  absurd,  strong  little  train 
that  climbs  from  the  main  railroad  to  the  level  of  the 
famous  monastery. 

Chug!  Chug!  Chug!  The  song  of  climbing  had  begun 
for  the  sturdy,  childish  little  engine. 

Gazing  out  into  the  vast  landscape  she  felt,  although 
they  were  but  a  few  seconds  gone,  that  already  they  were 
ascending,  she  and  the  little  engine — that  already  they 


454  The  Great  Way 

were  leaving  the  mere  world  behind.  They  had  passed  a 
few  dwellings.  Now  they  crossed  a  bridge  that  spanned 
the  muddy-brown  yet  silvery  Llobregat. 

Her  mind  could  not  put  its  finger  on  the  spot  or  on 
the  moment  of  the  beginning  of  the  real  ascent.  She 
knew  that  she  was  rising,  rising,  that  the  toy  train  was 
twisting,  twisting. 

She  looked  down  upon  the  circles  and  crescents  and 
ovals  of  diminishing  hills,  drawing  in  sharply  her  breath 
again  at  sight  of  the  growing  yet  more  and  more  diminu- 
tive panorama  of  terraced  pink  and  white  and  green,  at 
the  increasing,  multiplying  nearness  and  shadow  of  the 
grey  stone  monster  that  they  were  climbing  up  upon; 
that  now  in  reality  brushed  its  shoulder  against  the  small 
phlegmatic  train,  scraping  the  glass  of  a  window  with  a 
loosened  projection  of  its  rough  stone,  while  from  her 
own  outer  side  of  the  vehicle  she  was  staring  down  across 
sheer  declivitous  depth,  where  the  flank  of  the  car,  God 
saving  its  unerring  wheels,  hung  verily  out  over  space, 
space  that  conceived  and  re-conceived  the  golden  sunshine 
in  a  more  and  more  minutely  spun  web  of  thin  gilt,  over 
the  further  and  further  falling  hills  of  incessant  pink, 
incessant  white,  incessant  green. 

And  now,  the  train  like  an  insect  burrowed  its  nose 
directly  into  the  side  of  the  stone  mountain,  and  after  an 
instant  of  blackness,  a  few  rods  of  man-made  tunnel  in  an 
out-shooting,  inaccessible  detail  of  the  monster,  drew  in 
on  to  a  ledge  of  grey  rock — its  destination. 

She  stepped  down  from  the  car  with  the  curious,  and 
correct,  impression  that  she  was  leaving  all  modernity, 
all  recent  and  confusing  human  invention,  behind  her. 
And  here,  standing,  as  the  woman  was  standing,  in  the 
jurisdiction  of  God's  whim,  was  the  erstwhile  yellow  ant- 
hill, the  world-known  monastery,  the  Monasterio  del 
Montserrat. 

She  had  walked  toward  the  portal  letting  into  the 
courtyards  of  the  sacred  buildings,  but  even  on  this  brief 
way,  startled  by  the  scream  of  the  departing  train,  she 


La  Gran  Via  455 

had  turned,  and  in  the  open  space  left  clear  by  the 
vanished  little  inventive  toy  of  humanity,  had  caught  a 
sudden  view  across  the  huge  cleft  on  which  the  monastery 
hangs,  and  of  all  the  exquisite  loveliness  of  the  place; 
and  under  the  courtyard  portal  she  fell  down  upon  her 
knees,  turned  half^  backward,  in  the  impulsive  instanta- 
neousness  of  her  posture,  toward  the  beauty  of  the  oppos- 
ing grey-green  mountain-side  and  its  mad  yet  peaceful 
terraces  and  climbing,  clinging  statues  of  brilliant  white 
marble  that  tell,  in  their  startling  snowy  relief  against 
the  towering  rock,  the  terrible  story  of  Christ's  ascent  of 
Calvary. 

"Dio !  Dio !"  she  stammered.  "Did  I  call  myself  a 
Spaniard,  when  I  had  not  seen  that?  Did  I  sing  'Kundry' 
when  I  had  not  seen  that?" 

And  like  Kundry,  she  was  limp  and  pathetic  as,  having 
lifted  herself  up  and  with  effort  crossed  the  courtyards  of 
the  monastery,  she  drew  herself  slowly  into  the  edifice  of 
the  Holy  Grail. 

The  dim  church,  lustrous  through  its  constant  dusk 
with  the  dull-glowing  she,en  of  its  luxurious  gold  and  its 
candle-light,  was  sparsely  peopled,  its  congregation 
mainly  peasant  pilgrims,  simple,  devout,  and  happy. 
Service  was  monotonously,  soothingly  under  way.  Two 
hundred  candles,  about  the  altar  and  pendulous  above  it 
in  gently  vibrating  candelabra,  burned  against  the  streak- 
ing, filtered  sunlight.  The  chant  of  priests  and  respon- 
sive, slow  male  choir  quavered  Latin  over  the  bent  peasant 
heads. 

The  service  done,  she  went,  knowing  the  small  traditions 
of  the  place,  forward  through  the  nave  and  past  side- 
shrines  to  a  stair  behind  the  altar,  and  mounting  its  spiral 
approached  the  brown,  Moorish  Virgin  who  sits  in  a  votive 
niche  balconied  high  above  the  chancel,  smooth  and  stoic 
as  a  female  Buddha.  She  kissed  it.  Then  she  left  the 
church. 

She  halted  in  the  vestibido,  dazzled  and  confused  by 
the  abrupt  glare  of  midday  sun  shimmering  on  the  court- 


456  The  Great  Way 

yards,  and  the  white  statues  of  the  ravishing  mountain- 
side. Before  the  church,  seated  on  the  pavement,  reclined 
a  family  of  peasants,  chatteringly  devouring  their  meal. 
One  of  them  promptly  rose  and  after  the  national  custom, 
despite  his  awe  and  bashfulness  at  her  attire,  pressed  her 
to  share  their  food. 

When  she  had  risen,  wonderfully  strengthened  by  the 
rough  fare  of  hard  sausage  and  hard  bread  and  pink  early 
wine,  she  stepped  toward  the  dirty,  pretty  mother  of  the 
numerous  family,  a  woman  thin  and  old  from  childbearing, 
not  from  years. 

"Madre,"  she  said,  laying  her  hand  on  the  tired,  youth- 
ful frame  that  struggled  respectfully  to  its  feet,  "would 
you  remember  me?" 

"Indeed,  before  God,  senora,  to  have  eaten  with  a  lady, 
could  my  kind  forget  it?'* 

"Yet  let  me  give  you  a  keepsake — for  you  to  use,  madre, 
as  you  may  see  fit,  for  the  'keepsake'  part  can  easily  be 
from  memory  indeed.  It  is  not  to  pay  for  my  food — no, 
no!  But  to  thank  you  for  harbouring  one  who  might 
have  been  a  foreigner  in  your  land.  As  it  is,  I  am  Spanish. 
Go  you  with  God."  And  she  dropped  a  heavily  jewelled 
ring  into  the  thin  gnarled  hand,  and  went  toward  the  gar- 
dens which,  beyond  the  back  of  the  church,  run  to  the 
brink  of  the  ledge  and  overhang  the  beautiful  far,  far 
valleys. 

The  gasping  woman  followed  her  and  clung  to  her. 

"Senora!  Senora!  Let  me  say  to  you  what  my  hus- 
band must  not  hear!" 

Her  eyes  were  glittering,  and  she  was  shaking  so  that 
the  jewels  were  glittering  like  them  on  her  palm. 

"We  made  this  pilgrimage  on  foot  to  ask  a  miracle 
of  God !  Our  house  and  little  farm  are  mortgaged  and 
we  had  not  wherewith  to  pay!  And  the  Blessed  Virgin 
has  intervened  for  us  and  answered  us!  You  have  an- 
swered us,  with  a  miracle  of  jewels!  Are  you  the  Virgin? 
Are  you  the  Madonna?"  With  a  quivering  hand  she 
stroked  the  woman's  cloak  that  was  so  ashine  in  the  sun- 


La  Gran  Via  457 

light.  "Let  me  make  confession  to  you,  then !  I  was 
tired,  tired!  And  had  the  miracle  not  happened — ah,  I 
knew  how  I  could  make  one  mouth  the  less  to  feed !" 

With  a  shudder,  her  stranger-friend  grasped  her 
shoulders,  then  let  the  seizing  hands  glide  up  to  the  thin 
face. 

"I  understand !  The  Virgin  understands !  But  you? 
No !  No  !  It  is  not  Spanish  !  And  you  have  children — 
you  have  a  husband !  Yet,  dear,  the  Virgin  understands ! 
What  she  would  say  to  you  is,  go  you  with  God,  not  to 
Him !  Remember,  you  are  loved!" 

She  pointed  back  to  the  group  of  laughing  children, 
and  went  on  into  the  sunlit  gardens. 

When  she  came  to  the  end  of  the  brilliantly  flowered 
path  and  looked  about  her,  the  realization  of  height  made 
her  again  draw  in  her  breath  with  a  sharp  little  sound. 

Above  her,  the  intense  gay  blue  of  the  sky  was  mapped 
over  with  thick  bulks  of  white,  shining,  moving  cloud. 
Below  her,  the  far  serpentine  valley  of  the  Llobregat 
twined  among  the  countless  distances  of  soft  pink  hills. 
Between  that  blue  of  the  distant  sky  and  the  pink  of  the 
seemingly  far  more  distant  hills,  the  two  colours  appeared 
to  meet  and  amalgamate  in  patches  of  lavender  that 
floated  through  the  gold  of  the  sunlight  between  earth  and 
heaven.  On  her  right  hand,  across  from  her  and  as  high 
in  air  as  herself,  stood  the  series  of  white  religious  statues 
immovably  climbing,  climbing,  against  the  grey  flank  of 
the  mountain  beyond  the  gorge. 

She  lifted  up  her  face  and  her  trembling  hands. 

"Already,  I  have  climbed  high,  O  mi  Dio,  have  I  not?" 

Turning,  she  retraced  her  way  among  the  many- 
coloured  flowers  of  the  gardens,  past  the  nestling  church, 
and  into  the  courtyards. 

For  the  hospitality  of  the  Monasterio  del  Montserrat, 
no  pay  is  asked.  Those  who  stop  in  the  whitewashed 
convent  rooms  and  sleep  in  the  whiter  linens,  will  probably 
be  grateful.  And  the  offerings  of  their  gratitude  are 


458  The  Great  Way 

made,  if  made  at  all,  to  a  clerk  in  a  little  office  of  the 
monastery,  as  they  go  away. 

She  went  across  the  paving-stones  to  this  office,  and 
approached  the  clerk. 

"I  have  an  offering  to  make,  Senor." 

"You  have  slept  here,  Senora?" 

"No,  Senor.  But  I  wish  to  make  the  gift  to-day." 
She  drew  from  beneath  her  cloak  a  carven  box.  It  held 
the  whole  remainder  of  her  burden  of  jewels.  None  other 
wealth,  of  any  kind,  was  left  to  her  now  .  .  .  unless, 
perhaps,  the  rich  creamily  beautiful  cloak  itself  .  .  . 
unless,  perhaps,  the  richly  blue  simple  string  of  beads 
suavely  accompanying  it  around  her  throat  were  worldly 
valuable.  .  .  .  She  did  not  open  the  jewel-box — and  knew 
that  his  country's  courtesy  would  prevent  him  from  it 
in  her  presence — for  she  did  not  wish  great  notice  taken 
of  her.  But  even  so  he  stared  at  it,  and  at  her.  "But, 
Senora,  such  a  gift  is  not  in  my  province !  To  make  such 
an  offering  you  must  see " 

"See  whom  you  choose,  amigo.  Attend  to  it  for  me, 
so?" 

"Excuse  me,  excuse  me,  but  no,  Senora !"  For  he  had 
felt  the  weight  of  it,  extraordinary  for  a  thing  so  fragile, 
and  had  hastened,  first  his  words,  and  then  himself  away, 
against  the  dread  possibility  of  seeming  rudeness.  When 
he  returned  it  was  with  a  bjack-robe,  old  and  fair  of 
face,  calm,  as  would  be  here,  and  quiet,  soft,  and  sweet, 
as  would  be  too. 

And  to  the  prayer-gemmed  hands  of  this  old  monk  the 
woman  consigned  this  last  material  burden  of  hers. 

"Senora,"  he  said,  "our  custom  is  to  take  only  when 
our  hospitality  has  been  taken.  Mariana,  then " 

"But  this  afternoon,"  she  said,  "I  go  on  up  to  the 
peak  of  San  Jeronimo — and  you  must  know,  padre,  that 
some  day  or  other,  even  for  us  Spaniards  there  will  be  no 
manana !" 

"My  dear,"  he  smiled  gently  back  to  her  smile,  "for 


La  Gran  Via  459 

Spaniards  who  believe  in  God,  always  there  is  a  to- 
morrow !" 

"But  this — this  kind  of  gift,"  she  said,  hesitant  from 
pressing  its  nature  but  pressed  to  her  argument,  "must 
be  left  in  your  care  while  I  am  gone,  so  if  yours  to- 
morrow, why  not  yours  to-day?  Shall  you  make  me 
carry  it  with  me?  For — padre — even  so  little  a  package 
as  this  can  be  a  burden  when — when  one  is  trying  to 
climb!  .  .  .  And — I  understand  it  is  a  long  climb,  is  it 
not?" 

"Indeed  yes,  and  for  a  woman,  Sefiora !  There  lies 
the  Bad  Valley !"  She  had  closed  his  two  hands  upon 
the  jewel-box,  her  own  emanating  the  feminine  per- 
suasiveness that  renders  malleable  even  the  exclusive 
lovers  of  Christ ;  and  holding  it  now  in  one  hand — and 
unopened,  for  he  was  as  Spanish  as  his  clerk — with  the 
other  he  pointed,  his  gesture  beginning  just  yonder  with 
some  rough-hewn  steps,  and  sweeping  onward  widely 
across  the  fissure.  "I  can  read  the  history  of  its  creation, 
a  history  as  wonderful  as  that  this  very  church  should 
afterward  have  possessed  the  Holy  Grail,  rewritten  in 
your  eyes  as  you  gaze  at  it,  for  you  are  evidently  one 
who  reads.  May  you  read  but  such  beauties  always ! 
There  begins  the  wound  of  it.  There  it  lies !" 

"Yes,  padre,  I  have  read — I — I  know — something  of 
the  Valle  Malo!  So  I  go  first  directly  up  those  steps?" 

"It  is  the  way.     But  you  have  procured  a  guide,  yes?" 

"No,  padre,  I  do  not  wish  a  guide." 

"But  alone?  It  is  impossible,  my  child!  And  for  a 
woman,  more  than  impossible!  Shall  I  call  a  guide  for 
you?" 

"No !  No !  I  am  a  Spaniard — I  do  not  need  a  guide 
in  Spain !"  And  to  stop  his  coming  further  protest  she 
hastened:  "Anyway,  it  is  safe  to  go  a  little  way,  is  it 
not?" 

"Yes,  yes,  Sefiora,  if  you  are  not  afraid  of  the  dizzy 
steps.  It  is  safe  to  go  as  far  up  as  the  great  gorge  just 
above — as  far  as  the  steps  are  hewn  out.  But  no  further, 


460  The  Great  Way 

and  only  in  the  light.  And  the  sun  goes  down  swiftly 
here,  once  it  starts,  my  child !" 

"Ah,"  she  said,  "and  that  darkness  as  of  Golgotha 
is  coming  again  quickly!  And  I  must  start  through  it! 
But — I  am  not  afraid!  I  thank  you,  Father!  Go  you 
with  God!" 

"Go  you  with  God,  my  dear!"  And  he  called  after 
her:  "And  there  on  the  chasm-side,  hold  fast  to  the 
rail!" 

She  crossed  the  little  plaza  that  stood,  holding  up  the 
toy  railway  station  and  a  diminutive  market,  between  the 
portal  and  the  towering  rock,  and  began  the  ascent.  The 
dirt  path  led  suddenly  into  the  ruggedly  out-hewn  steps, 
which  rose  cruder  and  cruder  along  the  side  of  the  gorge. 
Looking  back,  she  saw  the  monastery  and  its  church  and 
vivid-coloured  gardens  spread  in  sharp  design  just  below 
her;  and  in  the  midst,  lovely  as  an  intentional  part  of 
pattern,  the  motionless  figure  of  her  old  new  friend  like 
a  crucifix  of  ebony  in  the  courtyard. 

For  with  his  present  he  had  been  like  a  child  on 
Christmas  morning — and  with  likely  more  reason  than  a 
child-of-the-world's,  here  where  to  these  black-dressed 
children  of  white  hearts  every  night  that  shows  a  star 
is  Christmas  night,  and  every  afternoon  that  allows  a 
cloud  is  Good  Friday  afternoon,  and  every  single  dawn, 
rain,  shine,  or  thunderbolt,  is  Easter  dawn — and  almost 
instantly  he  had  opened  the  box,  enjoying  its  tiny  key, 
and  then,  at  the  brilliantly  sunlit  dazzle  into  his  eyes  of 
its  magnificent  display,  he  had  cried  out,  eyes  wide  gazing 
after  her,  arms  wider,  forthflung  in  his  dumbfoundment. 

From  this  last  friend,  this  vivid  picture  of  him,  she 
looked  on  momentarily  around  her.  On  one  side  of  her 
rose  the  huge  surface  of  rock,  on  the  other,  empty  space 
dropped  itself  fearfully  down  through  the  narrow  chasm. 
Framed  by  its  rugged  walls,  there  met  her  eyes  a  bright, 
tinted  picture  of  sky  and  clouds  and  of  the  far-off  valley 
below. 

Across  its  beautiful  colours,  like  a  moat  in  sunshine  a 


La  Gran  Via  461 

little  black  thing  was  crawling.  It  was  the  toy  train, 
creeping  once  more  up  from  Monistrol.  Once  more,  man's 
invention  had  come  within  her  vision. 

"But  it  has  nothing  to  bring  me,  O  God!"  she  said, 
and  turning  her  back  upon  it,  she  went  slowly  on. 

The  rock  up  which  the  rough  steps  led  was  a  frag- 
ment of  the  mountain  which  had  looked,  from  the 
monastery,  like  an  oval  pebble  set  on  end. 

It  was  two  hundred  feet  high. 

It  was  but  one  of  innumerable  formations,  gigantic 
and  grey  and  conical,  that  rose  all  about.  The  walls 
closed  in  behind  her.  The  early  twist  of  the  huge  chasm 
had  shut  away  the  monastery.  She  was  alone,  in  a  wilder- 
ness of  primeval  stone.  Not  rough  and  peaked,  but 
smooth  and  massively  gentle  like  mad  inverted  stalactites, 
the  wild  forms  reared  above  her  through  the  air.  She 
was  in  the  Voile  Malo. 

She  went  on  and  on,  her  breath  caught  and  caught 
again  at  the  multiplying  loveliness  of  the  weird  and  mon- 
strous shapes.  Infinitely  higher  than  the  rocks,  against 
the  glowing  blue  sky  hung  one  glittering  cloud,  pure  white 
as  a  poised  dove. 

Before  her,  softly  green  amid  the  riotous  grey,  a  little 
grove  of  pines  stood  on  a  plateau  of  shelving  granite. 

She  pressed  forward  to  it,  and  turned  among  the 
stunted  trees  to  look  down  upon  the  strange  magnificence 
of  the  gorge.  Her  arms  leapt  out  in  a  passionate  gesture, 
and  physical  speech  broke  from  her. 

"So,  I  have  passed  you,  I  have  passed  you,  Voile 
Malo!  I  have  passed  you  at  last,  and  human  things  and 
people  can  touch  me  no  more !  See,  I  am  beyond  you ! 
What  thing  or  person,  in  the  whole  human  world,  can 
strike,  can  bruise  me  now?  The  world  that  lies  below 
you,  now  lies  also  below  me !  God  has  granted  that  I 
have  passed  you !  He  bade  me  climb,  and  I  have  done 
His  bidding!  I  have  still  to  climb — but  you  are  passed, 
is  it  not  so,  Valle  Malo?  All  things  pass !  Once  it  was 
trudge,  trudge,  trudge.  That  is  long  gone,  and  now  it 


462  The  Great  Way 

is  but  climb,  climb,  climb!  Yes,  it  is  even  you  that  I 
have  now  passed  in  my  climb  to  God's  Market,  to-day !" 

She  knew  that  the  Bad  Valley  still  stretched  on  and 
on  ahead ;  but  to  the  poetry  of  her  mind,  as  to  the  poetry 
of  the  simple  Catalonian  peasant's,  the  symbol  of  it  con- 
centrated and  spent  itself  in  the  beautiful  desolate  gorge 
that  she  indeed  had  just  passed,  and  now,  as  she  pushed 
through  the  grove  of  pines  and  up  the  shard-strewn  trail 
into  the  further  wildernesses  of  stone,  the  exaltation  of 
the  heights  was  upon  her. 

Of  necessity  a  great  terror  lay  at  the  bottom  of  her 
soul.  But  it  was  truly  at  the  bottom  of  that  soul,  numb 
and  insignificant  under  the  blissfully  evaporating  weight 
of  her  worse  terror,  that  of  the  world  from  which  she 
fled;  and  with  her  back  to  the  fearful  emblematic  chasm, 
and  her  gradually  slower  and  slower  steps  leading  on  and 
up  through  the  intermingled  stone  and  verdure,  an  un- 
speakable peace  came  more  and  more  upon  her,  creeping 
down  to  her  from  its  eternal  brooding  on  the  sublime 
heights  surrounding  her  and  before  her. 

She  was  in  the  region  of  the  huge  stone  grotesques 
that  build  up  the  fantastical  crown  of  the  Sacred  Moun- 
tain. Here,  there,  and  everywhere,  wonderful  in  their 
weird  shapes  marked  out  against  the  sky,  they  stood  grey 
and  naked  and  immobile  like  Titan  sentinels. 

And  as  she  went  marvelling  on  and  on,  one  and  then 
another  and  another  and  another,  seemed  to  take  on  more 
than  accidental  form.  From  their  mere  likeness  to  great 
battlements  and  towers,  nearer  and  more  near  they  pro- 
gressed to  shapes  of  giant  boasts:  a  monster  crouching 
cat ;  a  fabulous  dromedary ;  an  elephant  far  vaster  than  a 
mastodon,  its  distorted  trunk  trickling  down  along  the 
blue  of  the  heavens  like  a  rivulet  of  granite.  They  had 
the  filmy  trick  and  fascination  of  clouds,  in  which  men 
read  startling  forms.  But  unlike  clouds,  they  were  real, 
stable,  as  though  created  thus  deliberately.  It  was  as  if 
God,  aeons  ago  in  the  dim  age  of  His  making  of  the 
astounding  pinnacles,  had  had  some  fleeting  thoughts  of 


La  Gran  Via  463 

forms  of  life  He  would  later  undertake,  and  His  vague 
shadowy  ideas  had  caught  themselves,  and  been  tangible- 
ized,  in  the  formative  nature  of  the  molten  stone. 

Here  in  the  isolation,  where  time  was  of  as  little  import 
as  the  elements,  where  elements  and  time  were  things  of 
sheer  sequence,  not  pregnant  consequence,  the  coming  of 
sunset,  though  it  told  the  human  creature  who  had  come 
into  the  region  that  she  must  have  climbed  for  hours,  yet 
brought  her  no  feeling  of  surprise,  beyond  that  of  its 
radiant  glory. 

"Verily,  'here  Time  and  Space  are  one'!"  she 
breathed ;  and  the  strange  words  from  the  great  Grail 
drama,  always  queer  to  her,  held  now  some  new  signifi- 
cance, as  if  the  familiarity  that  had  been  for  her  in  their 
oddness  had  been  prophetic,  of  a  sympathy,  stirred  then, 
with  something  that  had  become  real  finally,  here  and 
now,  buckling  the  distant  painted  panoramic  fascination 
to  the  immense  actuality  of  these  corresponding  vaster 
marvels  in  the  "now  and  here"  that  were  one;  while  all 
the  queerness  stopped  in  it  still,  keeping  the  thought,  the 
sense,  with  all  this  added  sensation,  still  a  thing  ineffable 
literally,  no  more  to  be  told  than  it  already  was  in  those 
almost  senseless  words.  It  seemed  to  her,  here  and  now, 
as  if  they  must  inevitably  have  been  written,  whether  from 
near  or  far,  into  the  greatest  of  all  art-expressions  of  the 
Grail  significances,  in  attempt  to  suggest  in  helpless 
tangibility  something  of  the  one  quality  common  to  all  the 
elements  of  God — something  of  ...  this;  her  thoughts 
wending  with  her  as  if  art,  a  spirit,  must  follow  any  who 
came  out  of  wildernesses  and  touched  it  once,  no  matter 
how  soon,  or  far,  or  immolate  they  might  go  back  away 
from  it  into  wilderness  again.  .  .  .  For  this,  in  absolute 
sooth,  fact  and  truth,  was  wilderness — wilderness  very, 
though  wilderness  sublime. 

As  she  went  reverently  on  again  in  the  bright  shimmer, 
a  turn  of  her  hard  shelving  path  brought  her  opposite  a 
solitary  great  desolate  grotesque  that  halted  her  in  silent 
wonder  before  it. 


464  The  Great  Way 

It  was  a  face — a  woman's  distorted  face,  aspiring 
stark  against  the  sky,  bent  back,  with  closed  eyes  lifted 
to  God.  It  was  ugly,  hideous — the  face  of  what  the  world 
in  its  cruel  brevity  of  thought  would  call  a  hag.  It  was 
agonized.  It  was  a  face  of  age,  tremendous  age;  yet  its 
pain  seemed  that  of  a  woman  in  child-labour.  And  withal 
its  torture,  the  horrible  twisted  mouth  seemed  to  smile 
— to  smile  ineffably  through  its  anguish,  as  if  its  eternal 
stone  trouble  held  the  ecstatic  triumph  and  peace  of 
Creation. 

The  woman  who  gazed  up  at  her  was  seized  with  a 
sense  of  shame  that  she  stood  in  this  presence  clothed 
as  she  was,  in  costly  garments.  But  her  instinctively 
lowering  eyes  fell  upon  the  hands  that  had  as  instinctively 
lifted  in  awe  toward  it,  and  seeing  that  they  were  bare, 
she  remembered  that  she  had  already  paid  h^r  full  tribute 
of  baubles.  Satisfied,  she  went  on,  with  one  lingering 
backward  look ;  and  the  increasing  cold  of  the  winds  that 
swirled  down  at  her  from  the  summit  told  her  it  was  well 
that  she  had  not  followed  her  impulse,  if  she  still  would 
climb,  and  stripped  off,  to  lay  before  that  terrific  entity, 
the  heavy  cloak. 

As  she  went  up  and  up,  more  and  more  steeply,  her 
path  dimming  and  sometimes  quite  vanishing  at  great 
slanting  spaces_of  slippery  stone,  suddenly  through  the 
moaning  of  the  wind  a  different  yet  a  kindred  howling 
reached  her  ears:  it  was  the  baying  of  hounds,  warning 
her  that  she  neared  the  peasant's  lodge  basing  the  utmost 
pinnacle  of  San  Jeronimo. 

Looking  through  a  passage  of  the  rocks,  she  could 
see  the  tall  slope  and  its  naked  little  chapel  against  the 
burning  sunset.  This  was  man's  highest  attainment  of 
the  mountain.  But,  sacramental,  finely  religious  as  the 
attainment  was,  still  it  spelt  the  world  of  humanity,  and 
she  turned  her  back  upon  it. 

Through  another  stone  rift,  before  her  rose  another 
far  grey  peak,  and  in  the  anxious  measure  of  her  eyes 


La  Gran  Via  465 

it  looked  even  higher — a  very  little  higher.  And  gladly, 
she  started  toward  it. 

It  stood  isolate  and  forbidding  as  any  of  its  grotesque 
companions ;  but  though  its  approach  was  arduous  and 
full  of  small  dangers,  the  formation  was  that  of  a  slowly 
rising  ridged  plateau,  and  its  conquest  proved  only  a 
struggle  with  slipping  shards,  her  aid  little  stunted  trees 
that  bent  resentfully,  threateningly  under  her  seizure,  and 
her  last  enemy  glassy  surfaces  of  glazed  slate  sandstone 
between  foothold  and  foothold. 

With  a  last  effortful  step,  she  came  abruptly  out  upon 
the  summit. 

As  she  stood  there  she  was  like  a  carven  figure  topping 
a  giant  idol,  supreme  in  air  above  the  world. 

In  a  great  disc  surrounding  her,  in  a  great  half-sphere 
overhead,  were  the  regal  colours  of  sunset. 

Red. 

Gold. 

And  countless  tones  of  violet,  from  the  soft  blue- 
lavender  of  clouds  floating  out  near  the  molten  sun,  to 
the  deep  purples  thickening  in  the  east. 

She  seemed  cut  away  on  the  very  apex  of  earthy 
things.  "Stone  Watchwoman"  old  legend  would  have 
called  her.  San  Jeronimo  was  behind  her,  shut  off  from 
her. 

"Have  I  now  climbed  high?    At  last,  O  God,  at  last!" 

The  flat  rock  hung  out  over  space,  and  she  ran  toward 
the  edge  and  paused  but  a  step  from  it. 

The  world  that  she  had  deserted  lay  spread  in  an 
endlessly  stretching  map  below  her,  prodigal,  limitless  in 
its  sublime  multitude  of  coloured  hills,  their  ceaseless 
variety  of  undulations  making  a  smoothness,  in  her  far 
vision,  like  the  smoothness  of  a  most  finely  rippling  sea. 
Though  she  cast  her  eyes  directly  down  the  fearful  drop 
of  huge  mountain-side,  she  could  not  see  the  monastery. 
It  was  somewhere  lost  to  vision  among  the  myriad  serra- 
tions. Though  she  could  see  the  pink  and  white  and 
green  and  yellow  of  the  melting  hills,  she  could  not  see 


466  The  Great  Way 

Monistrol.  Though  she  herself  was  wrapped  like  a 
Madonna  in  a  glory  of  light,  the  valleys  were  already 
shifting  from  their  brilliant  garb  of  day  into  their  dim 
and  dimmer  clothes  of  night.  About  her,  here  and  there 
in  the  lavender  and  violet,  a  few  pale  silver  stars  were 
shining.  Beneath  her,  the  light  on  the  skin  of  the  snaking 
Llobregat  was  changing  from  a  shimmer  to  a  gleam. 

The  maddeningly  dizzy  height  fell  sheer  below  her 
fascinated  eyes.  But  despite  the  torn  winds  that  she  could 
hear  moaning  wildly  hither  and  yonder  among  the  lonely 
peaksj  she  knew  that  she  was  supremely  secure  in  will- 
power until  the  precise  moment  that  was  God's  own,  and 
hers. 

A  sudden  gust  eddied  around  her,  swirling  her  delicate 
skirts  and  her  cloak  spirally,  into  the  likeness  of  a  vortex 
of  tinted  sand  or  of  tinted  water.  Perfectly  balanced,  she 
leaned  back  confidently,  daringly  against  the  whirl  of  air. 
It  ceased.  There  was  again  complete  stillness. 

And  standing  there  with  her  feet  a  few  perilous  inches 
from  space,  through  the  creeping,  softly  multiplying  dark- 
ness of  the  coming  velvet  night,  her  head  lifted  back 
with  upturned  face  like  that  of  the  tortured  woman  in 
perennial  stone  somewhere  below  her,  Dulce  once  more 
addressed  herself  to  God. 


CHAPTER  XLI 

THE    WAY 

"SO,  I  am  at  the  end  of  my  Gran  Via,  O  God!    One  step 
more,  and  the  Great  Way  at  last  is  over  for  me ! 

"It  is  for  other  steps,  O  God,  that  I  try  to  pay  with 
this  one. 

"For  having  looked  to  the  right  and  to  the  left,  I  now 
look  only  ahead,  where  no  eyes  can  see  anything. 

"I  have  tried  and  tried  in  every  other  way  to  pay. 

"Perhaps  this  is  the  great  way.  Perhaps  this  is  full 
payment,  expiation. 

"For  blindly  leaving  Cadiz,  I  paid — oh,  I  paid ! — with 
that  next  blind  step  that  so  soon  followed  Cadiz,  O  God, 
with  its  terrible  bargain  that  I  did  not  think  about  or 
understand. 

"For  that  blind  step  I  have  tried  also  to  pay — and  to 
— to  honourably  pay !  Well,  I  think,  I  think,  at  last  I 
will  have  paid. 

"I  say  I  did  not  think  about  or  understand  it,  yet 
everyone,  no  matter  how  thoughtless  or  how  blind,  under- 
stands somewhat,  and  there  must  necessarily  have  been 
some  badness  in  me.  For  that  badness  I  have  tried  to 
pay.  I  have  tried  to  pay  for  it  in  money,  for  one  thing. 
I  suppose  You  despise  money,  God.  But  I  thought  it  was 
right  to  pay  back  in  that,  and  until  You  showed  me  that 
it  would  be  wrong  to  go  on  paying  so,  I  paid  and  paid. 

"As  for  this  last  wrongdoing,  Dio  mio,  this  defiance 
against  that  unwritten  commandment  of  Yours  which 
people  say  is  as  great  as  any  of  Your  written  command- 
ments, the  one  against  self-destruction,  for  this  I  ask  no 
leniency,  I  make  no  apology.  For  I  know  that  You 
understand. 

467 


468  The  Great  Way 

"And  though  I  have  said  that  it  ends  the  Gran  Via 
for  me,  yet  I  do  this  knowing  that  it  is  never  finished. 

"I  know  that  with  this  blind  present  step  it  only  begins 
again  for  me,  in  some  manner  known  only  to  You. 

"For  I  have  learned  that  the  Gran  Via  goes  every- 
where— before  birth,  and  beyond  death;  and  that  I  have 
known  only  a  little  of  it. 

"Yet  I  dare,  O  God,  to  take  this  one  step  more — this 
last  step  of  the  little  of  Your  great  way  that  I  have 
known,  which  will  be  also  the  first  of  the  little,  or  much, 
of  it,  that  I  am,  through  it,  yet  to  know. 

"I,  Wanda  of  the  Stars,  find  myself  only  Dulce  again, 
and  step  out  to  try  to  find  my  name  among  those  stars, 
that  dot  the  Gran  Via  beyond  my  present  understanding. 
I  step  out,  as  blindly  as  I  stepped  out  from  Cadiz  in  the 
beginning,  in  order  to — escape." 

As  she  had  spoken,  at  each  word  the  quickening  dark- 
ness had  gone  a  step  of  its  own  across  the  sky,  turning 
the  lingering  purples  one  by  one  to  black ;  and  as  if  her 
mention  of  the  stars  had  been  a  command  to  them,  they 
had  come  suddenly  out  by  twos  and  threes  and  then 
myriads,  armying  the  black  firmament  as  with  softly 
glinting  battalions  and  finally  whole  regiments,  that  shed 
upon  it,  and  down  through  the  night  from  it,  a  wan, 
exquisite  green. 

"I  offer  no  excuse,  O  Dio  mio,  just  as  I  offer  none 
for  the  wickedness  of  my  trying  to  defy  You,  to  swing 
Your  pendulum  back.  You  understood  that. 

"I  tried  to  step  backward  along  Your  Gran  Via  against 
Your  will,  and  You  did  not  intend  it  and  You  did  not  allow 
it. — Oh,  You  are  such  a  loving,  gentle  God !  For  to  tell 
me  so  was  Your  only  reproach  of  me!  You  meant  that 
I  should  go  on  climbing.  Well,  I  have  climbed! 

"Oh,  Dio  mio,  that  climbing!  Even  now,  with  but 
one  more  small  step  to  take,  I  could  yield  to  prayer  and 
implore  You  to  reward  me  for  the  years  of  climbing !  To 
turn  my  bitterness  to  the  sweet  that  my  parents  meant  in 
naming  me !  For,  O  God,  such  is  the  vitality  and  despera- 


The  Way  469 

tion  of  Your  human  insects  that  at  this  very  instant 
there  persists  in  me  the  yearning  that  some  word  of  Yours 
whisper  to  me  that  sometimes  at  heart  he  desired  me, 
that  at  some  time  since  that  instant  in  the  Rambla  of  the 
Flowers,  his  soul  desired  to  hold  speech  with  mine !  Yes, 
just  such  has  been  always  mine,  O  God,  and  is  mine 
now,  even,  coward-like  I  suppose,  exactly  as  is  my  Faith, 
un-coward-likc  I  am  sure ;  a  yearning  that  Your  voice 
might  speak  to  me  some  such  exquisite  thing,  here  on 
this  pinnacle  of  the  wilderness  above  the  world,  like  a 
new  Epiphany  on  the  great  road. 

"You  know,  O  God,  for  if  ever  You  were  paying  atten- 
tion to  me  You  were  just  then,  I  am  sure,  that  it  was 
in  such  a  manner  of  yearning  that  I  took  my  little  red 
book  and  posted  it  again,  this  time  into  his  hotel,  and 
not  into  a  little  princess — where  it  belonged,  instead  of 
to  a  substitute;  and  by  myself,  knowing  You  watching 
me,  instead  of  by  a  messenger.  Ah,  even  in  my  very 
bitterness  and  even  angriness,  all  pride  was  already  gone 
from  me,  O  God,  when  I  did  that — one  step,  You  see, 
nearer  to  You. 

"Do  I  quibble,  I  who  have  not  bragged,  but  indeed 
earnestly  said,  earnestly  believing,  that  I  especially  love 
the  truth?  I  think,  O  God,  that  I  do  not  quibble,  for 
what  my  thought  was,  in  saying  it  must  have  brought  me 
nearer  to  You,  is  this :  Was  it  not  right  that,  such  a  love 
having  been  his,  he  should  know  of  it?  Indeed,  indeed, 
was  not  much  of  such  Tightness  of  thought  and  action  in 
me  then? 

"And  in  my  so-doing,  that  second  and  right  posting 
of  my  little  book,  I  think  that  all  yearnings  of  earthen 
kinds  ceased  for  me,  O  God,  because  I  knew  that  all  such 
kinds  were  what  You  had  chosen  to  strip  me  of. 

"And  my  last  words  to  You  with  this  voice  that  You 
temporarily  put  into  my  keeping  should  not  be  of  regret 
for  what  You  saw  fit  to  take  away,  but  of  supplication 
that  in  my  new  Gran  Via,  the  Gran  Via  of  the  stars, 
of  the  spaces  and  of  the  planets  and  of  the  constellations, 


470  The  Great  Way 

of  the  Milky  Way  that  stretches  above  me  now  from 
Dulce  to  You,  I  may  be  free  of  the  Trudge  Market  where 
I  sold  my  body  and  perhaps — oh  pity  me! — my  soul! 
Will  it  be  the  same  henceforth — paying,  paying,  paying 
for  having  sold  that  body,  when  I  have  completely  re- 
nounced and  sacrificed  it  and  left  it  far  behind?  Perhaps 
there  is  no  such  word  or  even  meaning  in  the  Universe 
as  'far.'  But— ah !" 

And  her  arm  stretched  forth  fearfully,  though  her  eyes 
gazed  fearfully  upward: 

"From  the  top  of  the  Sacred  Mountain  to  the  black 
face  of  the  twisting  Llobregat  is  a  great  way!" 

Th*e  arm  fell  back  to  her  side;  the  eyes  fell  in  a  long 
gaze  down,  down ;  then  lifted  again. 

"Shall  I  not  then  have  paid? 

"Or  can  it  be  that  indeed  the  bargain  entered  my  soul? 

"In  leniency  to  that  soul,  O  Dio  mio,  credit  me  with 
this  much,  as  You  now  look  down  upon  me,  me  standing 
here  alone  and  sacrificial  upon  the  mountain-top:  that 
I  did  not  drag  my  loved-one  down  from  any  pinnacle, 
that  my  fall  did  not  mean  descent  for  him ! 

"I  do  not  know,  God,  why  You  make  men  and  women 
different.  Though  I  was  to  have  written  upon  that  matter 
in  my  little  red  book,  I  have  never  known  why  the  matter 
was  wrong  for  me  and  not  for  him.  And  I  do  not  ask. 
I  do  not  know,  I  have  never  found  out,  whether  You  even 
intended  it  to  be  so.  It  is  possible  that  the  world  looks 
at  it  as  You  do  not,  and  that  men  and  women  are  equally 
to  blame. 

"But  apparently  You  mean  it  to  be  just  as  it  is,  and 
where  I  sinned  in  the  little  Street  of  the  Carmen,  pre- 
sumably he  did  not. 

"Credit  me  this,  at  least,  O  Dio  mio,  that — that  I 
did  him  no  harm.  Credit  me,  that  bad  as  I  may  be,  at 
least  in  this  last  step  of  my  expiation,  I  am  not  dragging 
him  down  with  me.  So  much  of  the  prophecy  remains 
unfulfilled,  does  it  not?  So  much  You  grant  me,  O  mi 


The  Way  471 

Dio,  is  it  not  so?  And  so  much  is  at  least  somewhat 
beautiful  to  think  of,  is  it  indeed  not  so,  Dio  mio,  entre 
nous,  in  this  our  lonely  moment  together,  Yours  and 
mine  ?"  v 

Even  the  winds  did  not  answer  her.  They  had  sunk 
down,  moaning,  among  the  crags,  and  thence  torn  away, 
off  far  into  the  heavens,  sweeping  clear  the  sky  before  her 
so  that  it  was  pure,  deep,  bright  with  its  army  of  stars, 
and  driving  the  clouds  together  in  hurrying  ranks  that 
became  battalions,  regiments  of  their  own,  till  they  were 
like  a  great  opposing  host,  banked  in  masses  behind  her. 

Her  face  was  still  uplifted;  her  arms  reached  out  to- 
ward the  new  brightness  of  the  sky. 

"And  so  much,  mi  Dio,  as  my  sin  was  against  the 
great  whole  of  Society,  I  think  that  I  have  actually  paid. 
For  I  tried  in  a  far,  far  bigger  way  to  pay — with  the 
voice  that  You  had  said  should  be  mine  to  take  care  of, 
and  to  do  with. 

"God,  have  You  seen  me  try? 

"Or  to  You  am  I  but  a  worm  that  tries  to  crawl  into 
Your  sight,  the  leaf  of  a  tree  that  tries  to  wave  across 
Your  vision,  a  grain  of  sand  that  tries  to  glitter  in  Your 
eyes  ?  Do  You  see  what  separate  persons  try  to  do,  or  are 
You  so  very  high  that  You  see  us  only  in  masses,  and  ages, 
and  huge  grouped  accomplishments? 

"I  suppose  You  must  see  churches,  God — great  epoch- 
making  cathedrals,  great  yearnings  of  whole  peoples,  like 
Notre-Dame.  But  do  You  see  the  little  cathedrals  made 
by  individuals?  Can  it  be,  O  God,  that  You  read  books? 
Do  You  examine  pictures  and  statues?  Can  it  be  that 
through  all  the  music  of  the  spheres  that  surround  You, 
You  have  heard  me  sing?  Can  it  be  possible  that  for  one 
instant  of  Your  enormous  Time  I  have  held  the  Universe 
still  because  You  paused  to  listen  to  me?" 

Far,  far  below  her,  a  dim  cluster  of  lights  here,  and 
a  dim  cluster  there,  and  a  dim  cluster  yet  farther  away 
shone  softly  in  the  darkness  of  the  valley  where  little 
towns  were  resting;  shone  soft  and  dim  as  if  the  earth 


472  The  Great  Way 

repeated  the  sky — as  if  the  lights  of  the  peasant  homes 
were  but  the  reflection  of  the  stars,  as  if  truly,  in  God's 
eyes  the  architecture  of  even  whole  communities  were  but 
star-dust. 

"If  I  have  done  that,  then  I  need  not  have  been  calling 
to  You  now,  for  then  You  have  already  known  that  I  have 
tried  to  build  a  picture,  a  statue,  a  cathedral,  for  the 
People,  a  book  for  them,  even  if  it  was  seemingly  but  a 
little  red  book  for  one  alone,  still,  a  book,  with  my  voice, 
for  the  People — Your  People!" 

Through  the  starlight,  the  voice  she  spoke  of  went  up 
as  softly  as  the  dim  lustre  of  the  valley.  But  into  the 
last  words  a  vibrant  note  of  passion  had  suddenly  crept, 
and  lifting  her  arms  she  cried: 

"Lest  You  have  never  heard,  I  will  sing  to  You  here, 
now !  Hearing,  You  shall  see  all  of  me,  as  I  am !  Then 
judge  me!  I  will  hold  back  nothing!  I  am  alone  with 
You,  and  I  shall  make  myself  believe  that  there  is  good, 
some  good  in  me,  I  shall  make  You  believe  it !  Listen  to 
me,  and  see  me,  not  as  I  made  myself  in  the  Trudge 
Market,  not  as  I  made  myself  afterward  in  the  Market  of 
Art,  but  as  You  have  brought  me  to  be,  good  and  bad, 
as  I  stand,  as  I  stand  here,  as  I  stand  poised  here! 
Listen,  and  hear  me  make  the  stars  stand  still !" 

In  the  utter  silence  she  leaned  back,  with  opened  lips, 
for  one  breathless  moment,  as  if  to  hold  the  stars  in  wait 
as  she  might  have  held  the  audience  of  an  earthly  theatre. 
Then  she  swayed  a  half  step  forward,  and  from  the  breast 
that  quivered  over  the  very  verge  of  the  exalted  rock, 
came  the  clarion  cry  of  Valkyrie  goddesshood,  its  "Ho-yo- 
to-ho !"  ringing  her  command  out  to  the  stars. 

"Ho-yo-to-ho !"  It  seemed  to  speed  around  the  vast 
circle  of  the  heavens,  and  as  if  it  were  a  signal  to  the 
massed  army  of  clouds  behind  her,  a  disseminating  motion 
stirred  them  and  they  began  to  move  slowly  again  around 
the  sky  toward  her. 

They  were  at  liberty  to  move. 

It  was  the  stars  that  she  had  commanded  to  stand  still. 


The  Way  473 

And  herself  thrilled,  removedly  from  herself  as  if  she 
had  been  one  of  them,  by  the  beauty  of  the  brief  thing 
she  had  done,  her  body  seeming  to  echo  it,  her  soul 
exquisitely  calmed,  she  stepped  satisfiedly  back  a  pace 
along  her  rocky  Gran  Via  of  God's  moment  and  hers, 
and  sank  into  a  little  harsh  nook  of  stones  and  stunted 
pine  tree,  to  plan  her  next  earthly-voiced  bit  of  song  to 
God,  and  with  smiling-natured  thoughts  clustering  for- 
ward to  forward  it.  And  their  ringleader  was :  Had  she 
ever,  even  in  a  Sevilla  street,  supposed  she  could  not  sing 
rightly  in  the  open  air?  And  her  lips  smiled  silently  up 
to  God  her  present  answer:  a  question  upon  a  question: 
"I  have  climbed  high,  mi  Dios,  have  I  not?" 

A  great  sense  of  Creation  was  with  her,  a  sense  of  it 
that  was  of  all  of  the  beauty  with  its  flavour  of  agony 
of  that  Stone  Woman  somewhere  below.  And  her  plan 
for  song  seemed  perfected,  perfected  by  the  thought  and 
symbol  of  that  word  "Creation,"  and  she  rose  and  stepped 
instinctively  forward  again.  And  there  was  now  no  need 
in  the  firmament  for  moving  stars,  for  her  voice  swept 
into  a  nameless  song  of  mingled  tongues ;  of  mingled 
musics ;  old,  new,  French,  Italian,  Spanish ;  whose  colours 
and  whose  delicate  vitalities  filled  the  air  with  crystal- 
clear  successions  of  pure  tones  like  very  showers  of  fall- 
ing stars — showers  that  to  her  intoxicated  mind  seemed 
to  be  her  whole  art-nature  fulfilling  itself — by  displaying 
its  beauty  naked  to  God  and  then  falling  to  death. 

And  again  she  sank  down,  clinging  with  deep  ecstatic 
relaxation  to  the  little  dwarfed  pine  tree  and  its  rock, 
satisfied  that  she  had  done  well,  done,  said  her  newest 
little  arbitrary  thought,  better,  for  instance,  than  ever 
in  any  former  theatre  she  had  done,  yes,  done  well  even 
in  herself,  by  herself,  Creating. 

And  she  had  Created,  was  Creating;  for  a  Catalonian 
peasant,  lodgekeeper  of  San  Jeronimo,  heard  an  angel 
sing  on  the  top  of  the  Sacred  Mountain  of  Montserrat 
that  night;  and  had  his  wife  to  witness  with  her  ears 
there  and  her  tongue;  and  had  dogs  that  could  not  be 


474  The  Great  Way 

witnesses,  but  that  had  been  soothed  into  quietude  by  the 
beauty  of  the  voice.  And  another  legend  nowadays  lives 
along  with  the  Holy  Grail  at  Montserrat. 

And  with  breathing  refreshed,  breathing  that  she  was 
now  sure — yes,  satisfied — could  never  be  tormented  by 
an  earthly  sob  again,  again  she  contemplated  what  she 
next  should  sing  to  God,  and  again  she  lifted  up  her 
body,  and  lifted  up  her  face,  and  sang. 

And  again  the  song  had  sweepingly  changed. 

The  first  troop  of  the  marching  clouds  had  come  within 
her  vision.  The  army  was  defiling. 

It  was  the  beginning  of  their  great  pasear  before  her 
through  the  Spanish  air. 

And  whether  the  song  took  on  their  nature,  or  their 
soft  forms  were  moulded  by  her  voice,  the  passionate 
never-written  melody  that  now  fled  up  to  God  was  the 
pent  music  of  her  long  abnegation  of  love,  the  smoulder 
of  the  smothered  desire  of  the  long  years ;  and  as  it  burst 
from  her  in  wordless  flames  of  wild  unsatisfied  yearning, 
the  pale  thin  clouds  that  floated  by  were  to  her  eyes  like 
parades  of  starlit,  pitiable  nuns,  all  like  the  wan  yellow 
nun  at  Mataro,  all  tramping  desperately  along  toward 
God  as  best  they  could,  driven,  and  helpless,  and  blind 
to  the  stars  they  passed — but  too  thin  to  hide  the  stars 
from  other  eyes. 

They  disappeared ;  and  as  the  wild  song  of  renunciation 
melted  after  them,  new  clouds,  new  music  came. 

It  was  now  terrible  music,  terrible  lilting  music,  brown 
music,  of  obscure  beauty,  as  the  great  voice  kept  her 
promise  to  hold  back  nothing,  to  show  herself  completely, 
the  naked  bad  as  fully  as  the  naked  good.  And  as  the 
pulsing,  insinuating  rhythms  exotically  joined  the  night, 
they  were  now  terrible  clouds  that  passed  before  her, 
thick  clouds  which  in  the  nature  of  their  beauty  must 
obscure  the  stars.  She  shut  her  eyes,  and  poured  and 
poured  out  the  perhaps  evil  period  of  her  music  as  if  to 
bring  forth  its  fullness  quickly  and  be  done  with  it,  to 


The  Way  475 

let  the  last  lingering  element  of  it  quiver  fofe  ever  from 
her  nature. 

And  quiet,  contemplative,  she  sat  with  those  eyes  still 
closed  in  the  little  happy,  harsh  throne  of  rock  and  dwarf- 
tree.  She  knew  what  she  wished  to  sing  last  of  all  to 
God.  How  strange,  that  it  should  be  thus  that  at  last 
she  was  to  sing  it ! 

When  she  reopened  her  eyes  she  saw  only  the  bright 
quiet  stars  again.  The  sky  was  cloudless. 

And  quietly,  but  strongly,  she  again  rose  and  stepped 
forward,  and  to  the  very  verge. 

And  the  glad  wealth  of  ravishing  song  that  now  rushed 
from  her  toward  the  sky's  shining  hosts  was  the  music 
of  her  fullest  art-ambition,  and  the  only  music  that  could 
sound  the  ambition  of  her  love — adored  music,  silently 
adored  until  now,  the  music  of  Isolde. 

With  her  whole  art,  her  whole  will,  her  whole  un- 
nameable  Faith,  she  projected  it  straight  out  at  those 
stars. 

In  the  huge  conviction  of  her  music-ecstasied  soul, 
they  were  standing  still  to  listen. 

It  was  to  the  stars  alone  that  Dulce  sang  her  love-song 
on  and  on,  note  by  note  nearer  to  the  death-hymn  at  its 
end. 

Ecstatically  soft,  again  and  again  the  lullaby  of  death 
breathed  out  upon  God's  hushed  Gran  Via. 

So  still,  so  tender  were  the  moments  and  the  elements, 
that  it  was  as  if  God,  with  even  His  work  done,  were 
listening  with  His  stars  as  for  the  last  time  the  voice 
uttered  the  immaculately  dying  phrases.  And  as  she 
swayed  gently  with  their  melody  more  and  more  delicately 
poised  over  the  edge,  in  her  imagination  building  the  stars 
into  the  body  of  her  dead  love  at  her  feet,  the  darkness 
of  the  sky  was  as  subtly,  as  if  in  its  own  imagination, 
fainting  into  tones.  Its  colour  was  soft;  a  pale  colour 
of  grey  that  had  come  from  black,  and  that  only  hinted 
of  an  unshining  white-blue  that  would  as  inevitably  come 
from  grey. 


476  The  Great  Way 

The  voice  with  infinite  gentleness  sank  through  the 
last  note,  a%d  stopped — to  rise  again  in  quick,  desperate 
human  words. 

"Then  farewell,  and  I  greet  You,  O  mi  Dio !  Must 
I  go  to  You  with  my  arms  stretched  up  to  plead  with 
You,  or  will  You  let  me  fold  them  on  my  breasts,  as  if 
I  were  a  pure  Madonna?  Oh,  mi  Dio,  let  this  one  last 
step  be  to  Your  liking!  Will  You  answer  me?" 

And  God  answered. 

"Dulce!" 

Suffused  with  astonished  terror  at  the  agonized  sound, 
she  turned.  It  had  been  God's  answer  in  the  voice  that 
she  so  long  had  thought  of  as  the  voice  of  God.  The 
arms  for  whose  guidance  she  had  prayed  went  neither 
upward  nor  to  her  bosom;  they  sprang  out,  imploringly, 
before  her. 

She  seemed  to  see  only  the  stars — madly  moving  stars. 
But  even  doubt  left  her  and  left  the  last  vibrations  of  her 
wild  cry  of  unbelief,  for  arms  had  seized  her,  seeming  to 
strike  her,  as  the  strangled  moaning  shout  of  that  voice 
had  struck  her.  Nor  could  doubt  recur  to  her,  for  the 
bruising  clasp  of  those  arms  filled  her  reaching  soul  with 
the  sickening  joy  of  the  actual  touch  of  flesh  and  flesh — 
an  ecstasy  that,  though  it  mingled  more  and  more  with 
the  seeming  rush  of  wings  about  her,  did  not  cease;  and 
still  did  not  cease;  and  yet  did  not  cease;  and  seemed 
to  generate  and  prolong  itself ;  and  prolong,  and  prolong, 
and  prolong  itself,  into  a  great  way — a  great  way  that 
stretched  out  from  all  her  senses  that  were  deliciously 
assailed  by  the  odour  of  the  little  dwarf  pine  tree  nook, 
and  the  mercilessly  crushing  arms  that  had  carried  her 
there,  and  were  protecting  her  from  the  harshness  of  its 
very  protection,  and  the  voice,  that  voice,  which  as  her 
face  streamed  helpless,  helpless  tears,  was  helplessly,  help- 
lessly kissing  it,  and  streaming  down  at  it  helpless,  help- 
less words. 

"Oh,  my  own,  my  own,  my  own!  You  would  have 
done  that — and  after  your  little  books!  Were  they  not 


The  Way  477 

enough  for  my  heart  and  soul  to  live  through?  But  I 
have  you  at  last — O  God,  God,  You  have  answered  me! 
— I  have  you  in  my  arms,  never  to  be  taken  away  from 
me  again !  Dulce !  I  love  you !  I  love  you !  Do  you 
know  what  those  three  words  mean?  They  are  all  of 
life !  And  I  have  the  vanity  to  know  that  they  are  to  you, 
having  read  your  little  books !  Oh,  my  dear,  my  sweet, 
it  was  a  horible  blunder  at  the  opera !  Isabel  did  not 
tell  me  how  she  knew  Madame  de  PEtoile,  or  why  she 
wanted  to  see  you !  I  saw  in  your  eyes  what  you  thought 
of  me,  and  /  suffered  as  you  did,  though  I  did  not  know 
that  you  were  suffering  then — yoa,  the  great  lady,  who 
must  have  despised  me  until  she  ceased  to  care,  long  ago ! 
"Dulce,  my  Dulce,  all  this  time  I  have  been  looking, 
waiting,  searching,  longing  for  you — calling  you !  The 
very  night  I  left  you  I  went  back  and  tried  to  find  you — 
yes,  I  followed  a  figure  that  I  saw  in  the  small  hours  in 
the  Carmen,  out  along  the  Mediterranean  road  to  Ma- 
taro,  thinking  it  you — not  to  tell  you  I  loved  you,  for 
I  did  not  know  yet  that  I  did,  but  to  try  to  do  something 
right.  And  I  thought  I  saw  you  in  Paris,  at  the  Opera, 
and  thought  afterward  I  had  been  mistaken.  Yet  always 
I  hunted.  And  I  tried  again  in  Cadiz,  when  I  had  just 
given  up  the  hope  of  it  and  had  learned  of  you  so  miracu- 
lously from  Isabel.  Oh,  Dulce,  Dulce !  And  in  the  mean- 
time, I  had  thought,  and  felt,  yes,  felt  too,  and  decided 
I  would  not  marry.  But  I  found  she  cared,  and  I 
thought  that  was  what  I  must  do.  But  even  so,  I  stayed 
in  Spain,  and  hunted,  hunted.  And  all  through  this  time 
of  my  marriage,  which  I  thought  might  make  me  forget, 
I  have  only  remembered,  with  times  of  the  worst  suffering 
on  earth,  Dulce,  that  I  hope  you,  dear,  never  will  have 
suffered — resignation.  And  from  that  I  would  wake  to 
new  need,  the  need  to  hope,  and  I  would  call  you.  Yes, 
I  began  that  imaginative  calling  that  first  year,  right 
after  my  marriage,  and  always  I  have  been  calling  you, 
from  high  places.  Once  I  went  back  to  Spain,  and  called 
you  in  the  watch-tower  of  Tibidabo,  and  afterward  I  stood 


478  The  Great  Way 

again  and  again  in  the  Rambla  of  the  Flowers,  watching 
the  little  Royal,  and  wishing  you  would  walk  out  of  those 
swinging  doors  and  again  speak  to  me!  And  when  we 
have  been  in  Paris,  I  have  run  from  Isabel,  yes,  from 
dear,  pure,  unknowing  Isabel,  and  gone  to  the  Etoile, 
and  to  the  top  of  the  Arc  de  Triomphe,  and  called,  called, 
called  you  from  there — called  to  you  across  waters  and 
through  spaces:  Dulce,  Dulce,  Dulce!  Yes,  when  I  had 
followed  you  after  the  opera  at  Covent  Garden,  and  after 
the  dear,  dear  little  red  books  at  the  Savoy,  and  had 
managed  to  trace  you,  and  saw  you  in  Paris  stepping  into 
the  train  at  the  Quai  d'Orsay,  and  was  barred  out,  one 
second  too  late,  then  in  my  torture  I  went  as  I  had  used 
to  do,  to  the  Arc  de  Triomphe,  and  called  you  again,  a 
long,  long  call,  Du-u-ulce!  And  it  was  that  cry,  with  the 
prayer  from  my  heart  in  it,  that  you  heard  just  now — 
I  know  that  you  heard  it  coming,  coming,  just  as  your 
voice  was  actually  guiding  me  up  and  up  through  the 
rocks  and  darkness  to  reach  you  and  save  you — yes,  I 
know  that  it  was  what  made  you  pause  for  that  last 
question  of  God  over  the  edge,  where  my  soul  would 
have  followed  you  into  darkness,  my  Dulce,  my  darling, 
my  soul,  my  life,  my  own !" 

"Oh,"  she  breathed,  drinking  in  his  last  kiss  ecstati- 
cally, drawing  away  from  him,  rising,  "oh,  I  can  stand 
now>' 

And  standing  beside  her  in  the  rose-growth  of  the 
dawn,  his  arm  around  her  shoulders,  he  cried  joyously: 

"And  we  can  start  down  together  now!  Together 
into  the  new  life  that  is  to  be  ours  after  all  the  waiting 
and  learning,  all  the  suffering,  all  your  little  red  books 
and  all  my  calling;  the  life  that  we  shall  live  according 
to  your  every  desire,  with  you  the  guide,  only  choosing 
and  asking,  and  that  I  shall  live  entirely  for  you,  leaving 
you  only  at  your  bidding,  otherwise  always  beside  you! 
Oh,  my  own,  my  sweet,  you  do  look  strong  enough  now, 
the  strength  shines  there  in  your  face,  and  now,  instantly, 
we  can  start  down  together !" 


The  Way  479 

And  his  caressing  hands  drew  her  toward  the  descent. 

"Darling,"  she  breathed,  standing  where  she  was,  one 
of  her  hands  lifting,  "tell  me  once  more,  just  once,  look- 
ing me  in  the  eyes,  and  then  my  soul  need  never  question 
it  again — you  love  me?" 

"I  have  told  you,"  he  said,  his  eyes  shining,  "that  these 
three  words  mean  the  whole  of  life :  /  love  you!" 

For  a  long  moment  she  stood  with  her  face  uplifted  in 
an  abandon  of  quiet  rapture;  and  then  she  said: 

"Then,  darling,  try  to  comprehend  this :  You  and  I 
must  not  now,  or  at  any  time,  together,  start  down. 
You  and  I  together  must  go  always  simply  on,  and  on! 
Oh,  Jose,  after  that"  and  she  pointed  to  the  abyss  that 
was  growing  full  of  golden  mists,  "and  after — this,  our- 
selves— I  am  almost  a  madwoman ;  but  as  I  am  now,  I  can 
best  understand  God,  and  though  I  adore  you,  and  now 
know  that — that  you — love  me — we — we  must  not  have 
that  beautiful  life  you  plan,  my  own!" 

"Dulce !"  he  cried. 

"Think!"  she  said  gently,  quietly.  "There  is  your 
marriage !" 

"Dulce,"  he  cried  trembling,  "what  is  that  to  our  love?" 

"It  is  everything  to  our  love,  Jose  Luis !" 

"Darling,  darling,"  he  cried,  "what  do  you  mean? 
Surely,  surely,  such  a  love  as  ours  justifies  anything!" 

"Yes !"  she  said,  smiling  quietly,  rapturously.  "Yes, 
it  justifies  even  such  an  infinitude  of  trustfulness  as  fills 
my  soul  and  must  fill  yours!  Are  many  people  blessed 
as  you  and  I  are?  Has  there  been  a  greater  love?" 

And  he  cried  out  passionately :    "No  !" 

"Then,  dear,  it  must  have  no  stain,  even  the  most 
forgivable,  most  justified  stain!  It  must  be  so  capable, 
so  proud  in  its  capability,  that  it  can  be  in  our  eyes  like 
a  rich  pure  jewel  on  the  hand !  I  am  a  free  spirit.  You 
have  the  world  to  consider — and — Isabel." 

"She  would  divorce  me,"  he  said  simply. 

And  as  simply  she  answered :    "You  are  a  Catholic." 


480  The  Great  Way 

"Oh,  my  own,"  he  burst  out  passionately,  "my  own, 
why  at  this  moment  of  all  moments " 

"Because,  darling,"  she  said,  swiftly,  but  very  quietly, 
"in  my  bliss,  my  ineffable  happiness  at  the  goodness 
of  God,  I  understand  His  meanings  as  never  before.  What 
are  these  things,  these  bodies,  to  you  and  me?  We  have 
our  love !  We  know  at  last !  We  know,  Jose,  my  own ! 
What  do  we  need,  more  than  that  vast,  indescribably 
beautiful  fact?  And,  my  Jose,  remember  tho  reason  of 
your  marriage,  reason  greater  afterward  than  before: 
Isabel  loves  you!" 

"Not  as  you  and  I  love !"  he  cried. 

"Not  only  is  she  your  wife,"  said  Dulce  softly.  "She 
is  Isabel.  A  part  of  me  belongs  to  her!"  And  she  lifted 
from  around  her  throat  and  held  out  to  him  the  Astarte 
beads.  "My  darling,  take  these  back  to  her.  Tell  her 
you  followed  me.  Dear,  sunlit  soul,  never  knowing  that 
sorrow  is  her  guest,  she  will  always  think  you  did  it  for 
her  sake.  These  are  the  part  of  me,  my  Jose  Luis,  that 
belongs  to  Isabel — the  treasure  of  mine  that — that  had 
never  been  bought  or  sold — that  will  mean,  for  ever  to 
you  and  me,  the  beauty,  yes,  the  Tightness  of  our  love." 
And  she  finished  with  exquisite  gentleness :  "Are  we 
right,  my  own?" 

He  looked  into  her  eyes  for  a  silent  long  moment; 
then,  straightening  his  shoulders,  his  voice  husky,  he 
said:  "Yes." 

"Tell  her  that  if  the  Great  Way  ever  joins  our  paths 
again,  hers  and  mine,  never  again  will  I  refuse  to  see 
her,  Jose  Luis !" 

"And  your  life?"  he  cried,  suffering,  suddenly  irreso- 
lute, helpless.  "What  will  it  be?  Where  will  you  be? 
What  will  you  do?" 

"I  do  not  know  yet!"  she  exclaimed  readily,  calmly. 
"I  will  simply  do  whatever  God  tells  me  to  do.  What 
does  it  matter,  whether  I  spend  it  singing  for  you,  to 
People,  in  theatres,  or  praying  for  you,  to  God,  in  a 
convent?  I  could  be  a  nun,  now,  or  I  can  still  sing — 


The  Way  481 

now — Isolde!  God  will  tell  me  presently.  You  see,  my 
darling,  it  simply  does  not  matter!" 

"What  matters,"  he  cried  out,  "is  that  we — we  might 
doubtr 

"Doubt?"  she  cried  with  an  exquisite  little  flutter  of 
laughter.  "Doubt,  when  this,  our  love,  is  one  from  which 
God,  in  my  little  books  and  in  your  calling  from  high 
places,  has  burned  and  burned  away  all  alloy  until  it  is 
utterly  pure,  pure  metal?" 

He  caught  her  back  into  his  arms  and  bent  over  her 
with  his  cry: 

"The  pure  metal  of  God,  that  will  last " 

"For  ever,"  she  whispered,  letting  him  lift  her  face 
up  to  his  kiss,  "and  ever!" 

And  with  the  kiss,  with  passionately  solemn  repetition 
of  it,  and  of  her  words,  he  said: 

"For  ever  and  for  ever !" 

"I  will  watch  you,"  she  said,  her  hands  leading  him 
to  the  descendant  slope  of  the  rock,  and  gently,  caress- 
ingly urging  him,  lingeringly,  a  little,  and  a  little,  and  a 
little,  away  from  her,  "till  you  grow  small,  small,  small 
in  the  distance,  or  until  you  are  hidden  by  the  wonderful, 
aspiring  crags,  my  own !" 

He  had  done  her  silent  bidding,  letting  himself  down 
so  that  now  in  the  gold  and  rose  light  of  the  full  re- 
splendent day  that  had  grown  with  the  fullness  of  their 
love  around  them  she  was  like  some  lovely  statue  to  which 
his  face  gazed  wonderingly  up ;  and  suddenly  came  a  break 
in  his  courage,  and  his  hands  clasped  her  feet  desperately, 
even  his  brow  bending  to  them  for  an  instant,  and.  then 
his  voice  lifting  to  her  desperately  with  his  eyes. 

"Oh,  Dulce,  Dulce,  should  we  not — oh,  I  have  no  words 
to  put  it  into,  but  should  we  not  somehow,  somewhere, 
go  together,  up  mountains  and  down?  Deep  in  our  two 
souls  do  we  both  know  that  we  are  right?  Are  we  fair 
to  ourselves,  now  that  we  have  found  each  other,  you  and 
I — after — after — all  this  Great  Way?" 


482  The  Great  Way 

She  bent  slightly  over  him,  but  with  exaltation,  with 
arms  flung  wide. 

"Oh,  my  own,"  she  cried,  "my  own,  I  now  know  that 
there  is  one  thing,  though  but  one  thing,  further  than  the 
Great  Way — God  has  told  me — and  that  is:  the  Greater 
Way!" 


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